What trials may life lay on those who’ve loved
And languished in the summer of their years?
Love’s joy uplifted by a radiant sun
Soon falls to earth amid a flood of tears.
Fond hopes—once burning beacons for glad hearts,
Now faintly glowing in sad memory,
Fade like the dying of ten thousand stars
As dawning drowns them in an astral sea.
Thus through this interchange of joy and grief
Do human hearts and souls assume their state
And join the flux of universe complete—
Amidst the cold indifference of fate.
As golden sunshine brings tomorrow’s rain,
So joyful smiles may be tomorrow’s pain.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—
That endless siege of bitter, barren days
That fate extends to mete out all her sorrow
Through time-worn, empty tragedies replayed.
What consolation lies within such strife
That mocks the humble hopes of haggard men?
When sombrous sorrow permeates glad life
What darker sadness does such woe portend?
What future stirs within that ruined wake—
Relentless quotidian misery—
And from prosaic life what can fate take
To further debase  a lowly destiny?
Oh nothing—save your fond and timeless grace
And gentle smile, which can all woe disgrace.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Ah sweet flower, why do you bring me pain
Midst gentle fragrance and a softer touch?
What cruel pleasure does such feat attain
To see me suffer sweetly—and so much?
This tortured triumph by a lover’s hand
Is anguish far beyond the tyrant’s reach,
And love directed with such false command
Does soon in time its fairest promise breach.
Thus you, in wayward love do somehow take
The best and brightest of my fondest dreams,
While in soft hands a kinder heart you break
With sad untruths that do true love demean.
Still, if you must weigh blame, state this my fault:
Say that his blood was red; his tears were salt.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

What should I say to you if we should meet
Some ages hence, time-worn and unaware?
How should I then your startled visage greet,
And to my own surprise, what might compare?
Would trembling lips still find a fond hello
For friends and lovers of a yesteryear,
And would glad hearts in gentle softness glow,
Or sadness mar such chance with silver tear?
Might joy or grief fall under cold restraint
And mask their stirrings in neutrality—
Yet what fool soul could ever contemplate
A heart unmoved by such strong poignancy?
A meeting thus, its silent thoughts proclaim
In smiles like the sun, or tears like rain.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

A gentle warning for this trust that binds
Is not enough to hold a love that’s true.
Yet deem not this admonishment unkind,
Nor think my meaning strays from what is due.
You are my fondest dream—now, as before;
And all past passions pale by compare—
You are the sun, the moon, all beauty’s store
Reflected in your visage, bright and fair.
Yet slight untruths may leave a sullied stain
On dearest hopes that love itself has sown—
Such slights alone can grow to greater pain
And trade joy’s bloom for sorrow’s thorned repose.
My heart is yours—you hold it in your hand—
To keep in truth, or crush with false command.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

That dearest memories tug our hearts on strings
Is but reflected in these tears that flow,
And silent heartache such remembrance brings
Betrays itself in silver droplets so.
Thus do I now unleash in silent grief
The memoir of love’s long-forgotten years,
And time for once would be a welcome thief,
Could reminiscence  be his booty here.
Thus now I mourn the loss of all things past,
Of distant tender years now mocked by time;
And though love’s joys and sorrows seldom last,
Their relics linger ever on my mind.
These echoes are but sad and lonely strains
Of strings upon my heart that now are chains.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Could poet’s breath breathe life to barren lines
And capture beauty’s soft and gentle hue;
Could silent words strike chords of love’s sweet rhyme
And recreate the rose’s fragrance too;
Then in these lines I would fair Sylvia paint
And beckon forth her subtle melody,
No sweeter sights or scents could ever state
A prouder tribute to her memory.
In pen and ink her virtues thus expressed
Shall mark her worth ‘gainst Time’s unending siege;
Nor should a beauty ever age unblessed,
For worth unknown to time does then concede.
Thus in proud verse, I hail her with my pen—
This praise to stand till time itself shall end.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

These sad, declining, dying days of yore;
Fair sunshine morns all burnished gold and green,
The tender breasts where youthful passion tore
Sweet sighs of love that sang our heart’s refrain;
And sweeter still, fond memories of you
In frill and frock, a wondrous fairy child,
An angel sure, and yet a woman too
Whose silent charms a thousand hearts beguiled.
This was our time, when youth and dreams were one
And hopeful hands fair cradled every star.
Each triumph was a song not left unsung,
Each day so bright no shade of dark could mar.
Though memories be but rifts in sands of time,
Midst fondest thoughts, your memory reigns sublime.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

When I remember all the fruits of youth
That reckless time has scattered in his wake,
A child uplifted in a quest for truth,
Misled by passion, tutored by mistake;
Led by fond dreams of glad prosperity,
Cradled by hope, in hope fair dreams expressed;
Then to embrace a bleak reality—
By time and chance, of fondest dreams bereft;
From brightest morn unto the twilight hour;
From youthful glory to a humbler state.
From idyll homes to ivy-covered towers
Unto the Stygian black of forgone fate.
Oh cruel time that tempts us with such lust,
Fair gift today, tomorrow is but dust.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

And shall you mourn for me when I am gone,
Gone like embittered winds or winter snows,
Gone like a vagrant wanderer ever on—
No shadowed thought of whither he must go.
Will you think of me then—think then of me,
Of hopes and dreams that love could not express,
Of love whose gentle stirrings could not see
The fruits of life that passed it as it slept?
Yet hope should call that you remember this:
Once there was a man of caring—kind and true,
Whose restless spirit led his heart amiss
And did his fondest longings misconstrue…
Yet when I’ve gone, say nothing for me then,
Save, he was a man who lived and loved and learned.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.