If you can maneuver the way through my final round.
After death decides to powered me gone,
and you peruse, in fondness one more arduous time
those hard tipped and spiky phrases that I, your lover have put to paper,
then Compare them now, again to these changing times.
And if you should find a better line within a strangers sonnet,
never mind it. Hold them for you, not for them to chime,
for they will guide you higher than the most ecstatic of their muses.
Then vow to me you will sound out this final loving exclaim:
If my loves’ muse had sprouted as fervently as age did fall upon her,
the perfectness inside would have bloomed.
To fall in step besides those of famous stanzas:
But now gone from this future beside me, the word smiths shall see me
read them for only mode of the poetic word, hers for her rare adore.


By: K. Mulroney
6-17-2009

Shakespeares Sonnet No 33

XXXII.

If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
Compare them with the bettering of the time,
And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
To march in ranks of better equipage:
But since he died and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'

Image from: img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2007/02/roses