Sonnet VI

VI

Oh be a rose that is preserved through frost,
From bloom to bloom, surviving through travails;
For though thy heart doth groan its beats through loss,
Yet make thy soul a diamond that prevails.
Just sheer affection makes me smile at thee,
When you dance through my dreams within the night;
For you’re the best of all that I do see:
A precious jewel transfigurèd with light.
Oh do not doubt that I am not alone
In thinking you most beauteous in compare.
Thou art most sweet e’en in thy darkest tone,
Like songs from birds across the coldest air.
Preserve thyself to give the world its sun.
Thou art a hope that makes all battles won.

(C) Jack Blackburn, 9th June 2014

Poems from the Last Eight Weeks

I

Because I would not dull you with my song,

I shyly meet this paper with my pen,

And quietly pray my rhyming goes not long,

Nor makes me small next to some other men.

I miss your eyes and their dear diamond gleam

Set deep in brown and rounded perfectly,

And thy dear laugh which makes all sadness seem

Unburdened by thy sweet infinity.

That mirth will sooth my bruised and aching heart

When next I hear it sounding in my ear,

And such dear thoughts in each and every part

Maintains my joy until you next are near.

I wake to see thee clearly in my skies

And sleep to dream so sweetly of your eyes.

II

I saw her step with grace into the street,

Adorned in blue cascading like her hair.

How nimbly she did skip on her bare feet:

The very incarnation of what’s fair.

She took me breathless in her gentle gaze,

And my young heart heard a cacoph’nous peace.

It found out love in numerous different ways,

And ne’er in adoration did it cease.

How true that moment was: both fierce and raw.

That youthful quickness did not dare to lie.

Elder eyes do disbelieve what they saw,

But faith in it will let the memory fly.

The truth of youth within us doth remain.

Its ecstasy will e’er be ours to claim.

III

I wonder, if we’d known what time we had,

Would we have treated those last days the same?

Would we have strived to make each other glad,

Not left grim misery to make its name?

If we with love had fought for happiness,

Knowing that our dear time was painful brief,

Perhaps we would have ‘scaped this tearfulness

And still possess our joy, and not our grief.

Now all such thoughts and dreams are in our past,

And nought but endless questions can remain.

Toward our future must we hurry fast

And lend past hopes reluctant, sad disdain?

Though in my past you were complete delight,

Now, I must leave thee from my tear-stained sight.

© Jack Blackburn, 12th January 2013

New Sonnet

I

This glorious sunrise is our reward,
Coldly blazing across Jan’ry sky.
Its light pierces as t’were a silver sword
But, in reflection, cheers and warms the eye.
The canopy above is burnt from grey
Red flames awake and colour the morning.
The heart is quicken’d by this break of day
Both tremulous and stirred by its dawning.
Come the end, when sun and fire diminish,
We sigh, and bid the ember’d orb farewell;
For, out of light, our hopes travails must finish
And in out rest their burg’ning bloom must dwell.
But new days sparked under that greatest fire
Rekindle us so that we ne’er may tire.

© Jack Blackburn, 12th January 2013