Sonnet: Diary

Can I know or see a life completely
Through a man’s written word? Not unduly;
Suppose, they have been blurred, and not truly
Intended for me. Nor, though discreetly,

Read of she, her diary, so sweetly
Not a thread of insight nor pathos, nor
A fresh new idea, even hated. More
Of which I name, created? Completely?

Even understand it partly? No I
Think not. Knows my heart Miller by reading
The Tropic he wrought, or Baudelaire from
His Fleurs du Mal? We know, nor care not, why;
And whereupon shall man’s words know heeding;
We merely learn what we, must needs, become?

Sonnet: Strength and Fear

What smile hast thou that moves me so to love?
What strength of heart, that moves thee so to smile?
Wherefrom thy strength–for I have none–yet, while
Thine own, hast brought me such abundance of?

My strength has gone away from me, my dove
Why then hast thou the art to so beguile
Those spirits, of those deaths, which, as my trial,
Belabour soul and heart? I strove, above,

To be the stronger spirit. Yet inspired
By strength–and by thy fear–it now becomes
My heart to strive for joy, or even higher–

Strive, though I have not the strength required
To strive–for such is when, thou must have come
Alive! And so we live again! But why?

Sonnet: Forgetting Time

Alas, though I have searched throughout the nation,
Finding none alive as fair as she;
I thought, most certainly, that some would be
As they, who might approximate her station.

But, there lived not one in all creation;
Not withstanding that, already, we
Have formed a bond unbreakable. To thee
I’m joined, yet none awakened one temptation

That could steal my heart, from thee, away.
Such hurt do now I feel–when I renew
My certainty–for other men, who yet
May never know the firmament to sway
Upon the merest trace of she; forgetting
Time, while they, as mee, their hearts, pursue.

Sonnet: Unspent

Her silent feet would pace the night away,
(This feline, onyx, crost my path apace;)
From thwarting silence, thoughts of lost love stray,
(Though padding softly, sporting lost love’s face.)

Appeared she, lofty, when I saw her then.
(Though not sincerely real, an I lament)
I felt her smile, soft; I feel, as when…
(We dwelt in hours, not of ours, spent.)

Love of my heart, O whither hast thou gone!
(Doth silent now and withered step thy wake;)
How empty hath thy pedestal, thereon,
(Condemnt our path–recalleth our mistake.)

But no! lamenting love were wrong; but O!
Unspent, thy steps have left me, long ago.