The Fortieth Sonnet
Poets with a vision apprehend that death could overtake—
As a departed one remembered to keep alive in the heart—
Words of love to outlive our fleeting lives—to elegize—
And to plead that death will tarry past the vision’s bloom.
A poet might thus see his dream in his lost friend
And wail that lost transmittal is loss indeed.
A poet’s lofty heart might people him to all
And take his words to the eternal sovereignty of death.
Poets of the scrappy kind tell of their stings and blows.
The few with bigger hope in mind seek a path that flows.
The Winter drops upon us cold and sere—
Auroral Taints of Majesty miserly austere.
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