Sonnet 338

Touch me not, though my heart be inflamed-

I want you close yet ask you stay afar—

For now I know sweet love you have defamed,

Rank foul fog now veils my guiding star;

Where do I go, where do I go from here?

A course once clear now mired in darkest night,

For that pure love which I once held so dear

Now stands corrupted by a loathsome blight.

How to forgive what cannot be forstood?

What strength to pull this arrow from my heart

And not bleed dry in fountains of pure blood,

There fading into black, as life departs?

So quickly has this bolt turned love to hate

That I would now choose hell o’er heaven’s gate.

Loubert S Suddaby poems