The Dog Concerto

Howling hounds wail the sun away.
They sing praises to the pale moon-rock.
A deathly night they wish will stay
With sullen solemn psalms and pray'r,
And canticles of wonder-kind,
And chanting that ensnares the mind,
With surreal, ghostly, yet palpable fear;
Queer hymns by nightly creatures fey.
Like bells that toll thirteen o-clock,
They mark the end of happy days.

From Death Came Love

The chords of destiny drew us together.
From the deeps of Death came life,
And on life's stalk did our love blossom,
In the spring of the afterlife,
Rescued from the prison of Death's wintry shade.

It was like waking, only to a more glorious morning;
The sun a tad cheerier,
The bird's chirping livelier,
My troubles a little lighter,
And in my heart an little flame kindled.

I pray it soon consumes me.
I hope it never ceases.
Some fires they are unquenching;
Those not of reckless hate, but of selfless love.

A Ghostly Revelation

Each night i hear the witches cry.
I see the specters haunt.
I see the darkness take the sky,
And hear the howling hounds.

Each night the wind sans mercy blows
The curtains up in frightful forms.
The dew reflects an eerie glow
And Dark extends her frigid arms

I feel the tensest climes,
Of the forsaken evening-time.
My bed is like a death couch;
My body a frightened corpse.

My mind is taken by the phantoms
That stalk this unholy night.
They feast on all traces of light
And force me into their thralldom.

But then my mind remembers
What was and what is true,
That I not only am the victim,
But then the victor too.

Be sad for me, do not be glad,
I'm no martyr, no saint, but a specter

Sonnet 115 on The story of Romeo and Juliet.

There, for a moment, is hung this elevated state,
'Gainst dark heaven in the shade of a Divine frown.
What is wanted, against good reason is hated.
Born princes, for love, let down their crowns.
Cloud upon cloud is called to bear witness,
To what foolish men upon the earth still cherish.
There defiant, stands speaker against his mistress.
There the stars weep on the fate of men so foolish.

No love was great enough to sway Harmony's run;
Plagued with woe was wrought this ill affair.
Bade from ever, the last days of this noble son
Be cursed by this blessing, from Capulet fair.

From year to year these haunting thoughts th'old fools torment.
Feuding fathers shall by their children's tombstones repent.

Sonnet 116

Shall I, on your love romance?
A fitting fare for a fitting fair indite,
When most gracious you bestowed perchance,
Or per fates scheming blessed my sight.
What other goodness I scarce can recall
Save when first rusting lips spoke your name.
Fortune is kind when men into love fall;
Erst dull sight is ennobled to discern your frame.
These gilt days are still in their youth.
Hasten, lest Fate should find you wanting.
The quick and shrewd do reap the first fruit;
My lady, this fruit you, and still are ripening.
There shall be loving from end to end
Which end is, where our lasting days we spend.

That year was 1822

This man aged twenty nine,

The sea, it took his life.
He was consumed by fire,
Asleep on his funeral pyre,
Before the waters that claimed his life.

What before he saw was true.
A fetch to him foretold
The coming of this death;
"Water shall take his breath,
And he shall fail in the cold."
That year was Eighteen Twenty-two.