© 2015 Steve King
All rights reserved
You rest so easy in the guise
of your delighting dream,
with sunlight full upon your breast,
and shadows fallen on your eyes.
And from that dream confuse my name—
forget, it seems, the afternoon,
the waiting wonder that inflamed
in every sudden thrall.
So quick the fire, no need the moon;
and yet so soon your dreams required
that other call.
I’ll never ask you to deny
endearments that might seem misused,
for sometimes dreams must be excused.
But oh,
where have they fled,
My All—
those thousand sighs?
The style in this is so graceful it almost makes the bitter medicine of the message seem sweet; how do feelings come and go, why, and what as the speaker says is there to be done about it anyway, except rejoice or grieve, or perhaps both in turn. Your unfussy use of rhyme and meter here is just outstanding, Steve.
ReplyDelete"I’ll never ask you to deny
ReplyDeleteendearments that might seem misused,
for sometimes dreams must be excused."
Indeed, for we have no more control over our dreams than we do over the weather. But those last three lines of yours are filled with certain melancholy…
"But oh,
where have they fled, My All—
those thousand sighs?"
Those ring such longing. A beautiful write, my friend.