Would you stand up? Would I? If one lived while others fell, wouldn’t it be better to have done what one could? Would it not have been better to have died if one had n0t?
This was from a dream last night.
A dream in summer,
But only one long sentence.
Diagram, someone?
I am not sure why, but I cannot resist doing that. Be warned: I hide these within paragraphs, unindented. Can you find them all?
Ye Gods: Ye Old and New, and Yet Unborn,
Ye need not climb with Armies of Your Own
To banish each corruption from its Throne;
But light from soul to soul, and each adorn
With Grace; and watch as true believers borne
Will magnify the knowing and the known
Until they have unnumbered billions sown.
And someday, to their young, will point and warn:
See there, my daughters and my sons, that stain
There, crawling nearly lifeless on our height?
Dare you believe it thought it had free reign
To tear down what was Beautiful and Right?
And all the youth will laugh, and never see
How such a foolish thing… could ever be:
This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:
I expected five. But for some unknown reason, four came before three, shortly after two. And that told the whole story. As well as five could. Reading them over, I sometimes see a fifth there, and sometimes I don’t.
Above all, tend thy body, treat not cavalier
The vessel of thy mind and soul; for where
Thy foolishness, ephemera revere,
So ever, doth for each, the other care.
What providence might I impart of this!?
What bounty bring, avoiding such despair.
If not such caution, would I be remiss?
This wisdom, give I thee, beyond compare.
I yearn to tell the ease thou shouldst have won;
Or how simplicity wouldst bring thee bliss;
And wish thy time for these could be outdone–
Not lateness now these choosings reminisce.
Though ne’er may be these hands of time outrun;
So could thine ease much sooner have begun.
This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:
So simple are such
As would, effortless, give us
All our years; and more.
That art thou most of consequence to me–
Thy tender age doth all to me pertain–
What may I tell, that wouldst thou not foresee;
And warn of that from which thou shouldst abstain?
Fear not, shouldst thou, pursuit of all thine aims;
For rest shalt thou enough to persevere.
Nor fear the end of that which life proclaims;
For shalt thou cease, one day, to live in fear.
And never, thy demeanour, show as meek;
For this thine own frustration will prolong.
Nor fail to strive, believing thou art weak;
For shall, one day, travail make thee strong.
And know, thou shouldst, one truth, all else above:
With all thy strength, pursue thy dearest love.
This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:
If only I could
In this bottle fourteen lines,
Send away to thee;
To be understood,
What words, within these confines,
Only, should they be?
David Emeron: Sonnets 