Sonnet IV: An Oath

No Oath, no cause, nor promise do I need;
For promises, with duty, must be kept.
This violet, a promise could impede;
For I, by every faculty, am swept

To tend, and make to prosper, every bloom.
I long have tried to stay my hand; but could
Not ever stay my soul; nor–and, assuming
Such could keep me whole–remand, for good

Or ill, that Holy Thread I share with God.
His will–all beauty, and all bounty, came
From His divine, all knowing light–abroad
To His creations fly; and in His Name,

Created He those beings He deemed as great,
Entrusted, in His image, to create.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet VI: Sacrament

Remember thou, that shalt thou ‘ever be,
For all of time, mine angel, and my sweet
Respite, that cup for which my heart shall beat,
Superior in infinite degree

To all the finest grape, shall I decree,
May e’er become. And so shall I, replete,
Then worship from thine altar, at thy feet,
And pray that I shall ‘ever drink of thee.

So grant thou me, my sweetest love, this prayer,
And thenceforth shall I worship at thy shrine,
And never for thy succour shall despair
Within that safety, as our hearts entwine.
I’ll thenceforth drink of thee and then declare
That never shall, again, I want for wine.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet: Humility

Wherefore hath gone Humility, this Gift
That God hath given thee, that thou wouldst cast
So easily aside? Away so fast
His pearl hath been asunder set adrift

Therein; from thee this place so deep and vast
Must hide.  So precious, thou hast thrown so swift
Away His all-forgiving Shrift, ‘twould lift
Ye all together and astride.  Thou hast

His Spirit sore forsook, Thyatrian,
His word mistook, His boundless grace undone
And misapplied.  Who then art thou who tried
His Grace–Galatian, His Gifts replace–
When to and through the law His Son hath died?
Yet still shall He forgive and thee embrace!

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Sonnet: Dust

When all my time on God’s green earth is done,
This unrelenting march shall make me whole.
For dust is but the only worthy goal
For which all mortal men may strive as one.

What Death, what vast poetic end may come
To Thy reluctant servant? Death from gold?
Or from a love as fervent and as old
As Death from flesh, from opium, or rum?

O God Almighty give me pristine dust
That pray, I may obtain my perfect form.
Thy worn, reluctant, sword desires to rust,
And thence return to nature safe and warm.

And though I know that this can never be;
I dream a mortal’s immortality.

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