A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 14

Others abide our question. Thou art free.

Thou art the all we seek; more skill is thine.

How may we praise thy name? The all of thee

We know is praise, in honour more divine.

No words could tell, save only thine alone,

Nor verse, unless the offspring of thy mind,

The height and depth of glory thou hast known;

And ne'er in course of years from thence declin'd.

Live on as thou hast livèd: never now,

Shalt thou, by passing hours to ill betray'd,

Lose, in the smallest part, the grace which thou

Now hast. Thy seasons' splendour cannot fade.

So long, thy stage may say, as Men can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sorry, Matthew Arnold... I could not resist. It was too strong a temptation.

I never imagined myself saying this, but thank God it is over. One thing these two weeks have taught me - it must have taken more than mortal skill to write 154 sonnets.

Ah, and happy birthday, Will!

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 13

Uncounted men have chased thee; fair thou smilest,

Full bright the stars upon thy waters shine.

From shrouding mists thou callest and beguilest:

What art thou that this sorcery is thine?

Alone, untried, into that dark unknowing,

Where cold the tempests' furies mask the sun:

Who went before and knew not in his going

That none undid what thou in rage hadst done?

Who went before, and honour'd not thy splendour?

Who heard the sea-gull's cry and turn'd away?

Though in thy gentle loving softly tender,

Thou art as wrathful as thou e'er art fey.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

None, once enthrall'd, shall walk apart from thee.

The female rhyme was only meant to be for the first quatrain, but then it simply refused to go away.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 12

Wilst thou in cold unfeeling cloak thy grace,

Thy beauty never bar'd to mortal gaze?

What shall 't avail thee if no single trace

Of thy perfection liveth on in phrase?

Not Time's hard sickle may thy splendour steal,

Nor from thy cheek e'er rob the damask'd rose;

Yet may the years in some small part conceal

Thy fair enchantment 'neath their outward shows.

Indulge thy poet, sweet, who would but write

A hundredth part of what thy beauty owest;

Thus may the world still hold thee in its sight

When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

What would the world forfeit, could it not see,

Held in these lines, the wonder that is thee?

That's three quatrains down! And the only thing that kept me from giving up after the fifth one was (if I may be politically incorrect):

There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write.

-Terry Pratchett

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 11

Begin, O poet, with this single line,

And let thy metre fall and swiftly rise:

Mayhap, twixt verse and verse, the high design

Of Gods shall be revealèd to thine eyes.

Shouldst thou unknown, unhonour'd, sing and die,

Bereav'd in death of what thy life hath wrought,-

Still hast thou raised thy music to the sky,

Still hast thou writ, and seen: still hast thou sought.

Should thy bright years by fortune be betrayed,

Thou shalt not in not knowing be unknown:

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

What hand and mind have made outlasteth stone.

Write on, then, poet: write, and rest at ease.

None e'er found sorrow in his poesies.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 10

Most fair, most true, wilst even thou forsake

Thy path? Then never grace to living Men

Was giv'n of that high bounty to partake

That heroes know. What here remaineth then?

Let not their counsel turn thee who, afraid,

Would let "We dare not" wait upon "we would":-

None was by aught save turning back betray'd

Who in the face of storms unflinching stood.

Thy days shall not of glory cede one spark,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

In silent safety harbour not thy bark:

But follow, and, in chasing, know thou knowest.

Beyond the circling sea a brighter shore

Doth wait, where never foot hath trod before.

I suppose this is what comes of trying to write sonnets in the small hours. I simply could not resist winking at that much-maligned cat.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 9

Farewell! No more, through all my weary days,

Shall I upon thy beauty cast mine eye;

Though I may still address to thee my praise,

No more shalt thou in merry jest reply.

E'en now, thou gone, upon my longing ear

Thy laughter and thy whispers seem to fall;

Thou, best belov'd, shalt daily grow more dear;

All splendour else may with the seasons pall,

But thy eternal summer shall not fade:

Time cannot touch thee in thy hallow'd rest.

All else his sickle's malice may invade,

But thou hast fell'd him in his fell arrest.

Though ta'en from me, e'en in defeat art thou

The victor yet: he cannot harm thee now.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 8

I lov'd thee once; no lyres sang in Hell,

No bridges spann'd the expanse of the sea,

None dar'd, none fought, none brav'd the rolling swell

With brighter flame than what I bore for thee.

Some honour most the beauty that is fled,

Rememb'ring e'er the gleaming gaze now dimm'd;

Some seek a semblance of their ardour, dead,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd.

Thou hast not chang'd in beauty; in thine eyes,

Still do the fairest stars of heaven shine.

Had they in slightest part regain'd the skies,

My heart had ever hunger'd after thine.

Thou art the same: then fault it is in me

To value less the grace I daily see.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 7

Most potent and most mighty! Who can bear

To touch thy laurel? With what feeble gleam

Shall lesser stars the paths of godhead dare?

And wilst thou e'en ignoble pride beteem?

Thou drivest through the circle of the signs,

And swift the seasons wreak their wonted ill;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

Yet liveth on unchangèd, by thy will.

Nor to thy wreath, nor to thy golden lyre,

We lay, in base presumption, mortal claim:

If to thy lofty heights we e'er aspire,

We seek no more than honour to thy name.

We seek thee, not for glory, not for pelf;

Thou, mocking, sayest: Mortal, know thyself.

Halfway through - and this has been the hardest of the lot so far! Who would have thought that, "And every fair from fair sometime declines," would prove so troublesome?

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 6

More valour and more grace the poet's art

Hath giv'n to thee, more courage, than was thine;

Thou hadst but mortal longings in thy heart:

Thou wast a Man. He fashion'd thee divine.

Betimes the hero stumbles on his path,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd.

Belike of earthy temper was thy wrath,

Nor with the raging fires of godhead brimm'd.

Yet thou hast dream'd, and dar'd, and thou hast done,

And why are mortal hands accounted low?

Who once has gaz'd upon the noonday sun,

Hath solace in the hearth he us'd to know.

If thou couldst not to mortal blood confess,

Thy deeds were equal, and thy spirit less.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 5

Had I but known our moments would be brief,

That deathless joy will soonest end in woe,

Mayhap it had some fraction eas'd my grief

To say, my love, I never lov'd thee so.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And thou art yet more ardent than that blaze;

Hadst thou been made a sprite of gentler climes,

I might have dared to love thee all my days.

But thou art glory as thou art a scourge:

Too low to curse, too high for mortal praise;-

Thou art the paean and thou art the dirge,

And who shall dare to meet thy fulgent gaze?

Had I but known,- I would have lov'd thee still:

Mine is my heart, but thou hast own'd my will.

Also (as a respite from the endless iambs):

I never want to see anyone, and I never want to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to write.

-P.G. Wodehouse

He certainly had a way with it.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 4

Here once the monarch trod in regal pride;

Here once the hero sought his hallow'd fate;

But nothing past its season doth abide,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Upon these silent shores no sun shall rise

In glory like to what the past hath known;

None to the starry vault shall raise his eyes

And see his gilded pennants proudly flown.

What second dawn shall come? What poet's air

Shall tell of deeds of greatness bravely done?

What empty page those brighter lays shall bear

Of crowns and sceptres lost, of kingdoms won?

No laurels now, save this, alone, we owe:

The earth is still. May 't not be ever so.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 3

There is more life in twilight than in day,

More heat in Autumn's blush than Summer's bloom:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May;

September's breezes bear the fruits' perfume.

Regret not that the seasons fleet, nor sigh,

Nor weep upon the grave of summer's light;

What shall 't avail thee if thou dost deny

The crownèd splendour of the winter night?

Upon that barren beauty cast thine eyes,

Which, like the jasmine 'neath the sickle moon,

Is fairest seen by starlight; nor disprize

A bright December for a fickle June.

Then, as the year shall urge the seasons past,

Each month for gladness shall outweigh the last.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 2

Thou art no Sylph of air and fire wrought;

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

For thee there are no epic battles fought:

Thou hast a kinder and a gentler fate.

Regret not that thou hast no gallant knight,

Nor sigh for duels told for aye in song;-

Thou shalt not go unsung into the night.

Though beauty fleets, thy beauty shall be long.

Thou shalt not plunge a House in death and blood,

Nor see thy nation torn in battle's rage;

No thousand ships shall ride the Spartan flood

To write thy story on a darksome page.

Thou art no fair to harrow and destroy:

Thou art the fair of wisdom and of joy.

A New Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 1

Fourteen days. Fourteen lines. Fourteen sonnets. (And, I hope, Shakespeare's pardon for making merry with his work in this fashion. I promise to play with only XVIII.)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day,

Or to the fairest morn of balmy spring?

Or, churlish out of season, shall I say

Thine not the beauty whereof I must sing?

Could I but say, and own it not a lie,

Could I but honour other names than thine,-

But what avail me though I shall deny?

Thine is my verse; naught save my will is mine.

The bloom is fading from the summer's face,

And hoar shall sweep the laurels from her brow,

But thou - no years shall mar thy sweetest grace;

Thou, kept in this, canst never alter now.

Though fading springs and passing suns shall seek,

None now shall steal the splendour from thy cheek.