Sonnet I: Not Alone

I sleep and then I dream and then I wake,
And live and work and play from sleep to sleep.
And sleep again and dream, and wake, and keep
My hand, to pen, and psalm, and song; and slake

This lust I feel when, weak or strong, I make
Them manifest; I sow, and press, and reap;
And joyously, my vintage test; I weep
And laugh as, for one day, I quell this ache;

And thrill to share each cup with those I love,
And even those I may; though not in hope
That I might ever sway, or help them cope;
But merely seek them out; and deem, above
All else, they might not doubt that there was one
Who felt as they, when sleep and dream was done.

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

Sonnet: Truth Unquantifiable

When life has given all Her many gifts;
Whenever can the measure of these things;
Those gifts alike to paupers and to kings;
The very blessings, all, that spirit lifts;

Be counted up among the many rifts
And twists, and turns; and bold accounting springs
Forth only optimistic numbers? Brings
The news in harmonies and umbers. Shifts

The essence of attention to the day
For which this great accounting brings its news;
And which a man, forgetting not to pray,
Will promise Her he never shall abuse,
In truth unquantifiable, the way
He finds himself inspired by Her muse.

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Sonnet V: 1914

See there, what are those pestilent that smother
In the muck? And there, I see, ignored
Within the mire, more are stuck; and Lord!
Behold, one bunches up to bid another

Well! Though unobtrusively, its brother
It disdains with such a tell.  With bored
Enthusiasm, one will slither toward
A wretched thing as if to give the other

An award. But lo! What it intends!
Now can it actually be, to grant
The other honours and a meaningless
Degree? How sweet, if my corrupted friends
Would slyly acquiesce, to grant me scanty
Honours with an automatic yes.

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

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Intro 5: Strange Days

I fell upon, particularly strange
These shores wherein I found myself marooned
Instead of somewhere infinitely light.

My voyage, it began capriciously.
And, though within it lives embedded form,
Possesses also an embedded soul.

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Sonnet VII: Reflected

When I, within the mirror, thee regard;
But not of thine, which shone in silvered glass;
Nay, this, that all the many years discard;
As though no year might ever for thee pass.

So fair, thy sherry coloured hair and eyes;
Thy perfect form I see, as straight and hard;
Thy smile, seeming beautiful and wise;
And strong thy limbs, by time are nary scared.

If thou couldst know what wonders thee await;
More wondrous than most any thou surmise;
If thou couldst only see thy pain abate;
And know how much of life this pain denies.

How few thy years; alas, how little wait;
My life surpast, when thou such things instate.

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

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