i
All your spirits are low
and the tears are hot
on your checks
then I would do anything
in my power
to give you peace.
ij
If I could write today
if I could fool the Gods
as they sleep
into thinking that your voice
speaks through my hand
for one brief moment
to give you rest
to buy you time
then I would write today.
Gaze upon me, O Lovely, and beware,
Or as thy frosts unfairly come, rejoice.
Fair-play with fortune will confound Despair
That, hideous with pride, hath shown its voice.
For never-resting, God’s anointed here
Excel: to verse thy numbered days, to bear
This work, to lend thee summer; and to year
Thy days, and keep thee and thy children fair.
In all our seasons, prisoners are we–
As checked, and sapped, and pent, as tyrants fear
All eyes the beauty we distil may see–
Who gift these days to winter they who sneer:
Though thieving Time all substance yet destroys,
We left thee more than wretched Time enjoys.
The final draft of this sonnet became part
of a short, or possibly at some point, very long
sequence; click here to read it all:
To sit with thee and talk with thee again,
Delight in thy reflections sweetly then,
To kiss thine understanding lips once more…
And every moment’s poetry explore;
To dwell once more and wander so in love,
To hold thy hand and prize all price above,
That sweetest and that wisest I adore…
And stay with mee forever would implore.
O sweetest and my brightest and my dearest
I, would spend one fleeting day a year,
So gladly this but touch thy fingertips…
And will thy hand to mine, that nary slips.
And should I pray that soon will come the day…?
What could eclipse the heaven of thy lips?
I was so with thee
Besotted, that lyrical
My wordsong did fly.
Pray now, defilers; pray there is no Hell;
For as you dredge all Greatness through the mire,
Yet fear your acts deserving of Its Fire,
Pray now, to quell this dread you cannot quell.
Pray now; then jeer and mock the Great to sell
Your squalid lie; equate your filth; conspire;
And crave Them all to die. With shrill desire,
Pray now; deny this Pit that may untell
Your lie–exact Its Payment for your crime.
And I… will pray Its Fires to be true,
That you, the unredeemable, will rue
Its searing brand–unyielding–as you plead,
Demand discarded Grace to intercede,
And beg… and shriek… and burn… for all of time.
This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:
Comes now, from the East:
Sun, to turn this evil tide;
Burn it back to Hell.
David Emeron: Sonnets 