Wednesday Poetry: Sonnet 55 - Love and Poetry outlast Stuff

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It's time to reclaim my blog space. Far too much time has passed, far too many things have flowed under the bridge since I have written last. Time is fleeting, life is short, and I am not getting any younger. So, the time is now....

In resurrecting my blog, I have decided to start by posting poetry every Wednesday. Because... well.... poetry is beautiful. And transcendent. And my daughter is becoming a poet. I will do anything to encourage her in her craft.

I write poetry. I wouldn't say my poetry is beautiful, or even very good. But poetry is sneaky, its form and brevity belying a hidden strength. And an underestimated staying power. As true in our time as in the time Willy wrote this sonnet and every time before and since, when the monuments of wasteful war are overturned, love and verse shall remain.

Gian Paolo Panini, Figures Conversing Among the Ruins, oil on canvas, ca. 1760. 

Sonnet 055: Not Marble, Nor The Gilded Monuments

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

    So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

    You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

- William Shakespeare