So you shall live in this sweet dying art
Your visage etched in ink as beauties past,
For if a poet’s pen may capture worth
I pray these words may never be surpassed;
If sweetest essence can distill in rhyme
May those who quaff fall blind in imagery
As fools who search for angels on the sun
Or strain for mermaids on a moonlit sea;
For what is beauty but a living dream,
And what is truth, not but a tenet pure,
Yet when the two are joined in esse supreme – –
From union such rise sylphs beyond compare;
If these words lie then may god strike me dead,
But if so true, need nothing more be said.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.