Ever more strongly, ever more surely,
Two hearts have bonded closer together;
Ever more nearly, ever more dearly
Two cherished spirits clasp one another;
Ever more fondly, ever more warmly
Two souls continue their loving embrace;
Ever more staunchly, ever more calmly,
Hands fold together with fingers enlaced.

So they move onward as time marches forward,
True lovers borne on the river of life;
Not a glance reward, faith is their bollard,
Ever together as husband and wife.
Love is time honored and all is conquered
Whenever hearts join to make the world right;
All eyes turn upward, love is their songbird,
Heaven on earth is their sweet paradise.

Written for Joe and Amy on the eve of their wedding.
Happiness forever.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Your love for me—my raison d’être—
The breath of my life, the blood of my veins;
My love for you has edged me ever better
To strive for all that life and love attains.
Bonds so sure, no man could put asunder
This song affirms what shall outlast all time;
Our shrine, when we, the sweet green earth lie under,
And other voices echo this dear rhyme.
Two hearts as one—we know the old cliche;
But hackneyed truth still as a truth does live,
And hearts so wedded in sweet love do say—
The love we gain is but the love we give.
Two hearts embrace and live as forever one;
So may we live—and this song ever sung.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I saw her sitting on a wall of stone
As on her flaxen hair the sunlight shone;
And as I gazed the summer sun stood still
To rob my mind of thought, and legs of will.
I stood there motionless amidst her grace
And watched the warm sunshine caress her face,
And dreamed those gentle sunlit hands were mine,
Drowning my soul in silent thoughts sublime—
A short sad moment later she was gone
Though in that silent spot I lingered on,
While in the west the dying sun did burn,
I stood there still, awaiting her return.
I placed my hand upon the stones now cold
And thought if they could speak of memories old,
What would they say of our brief meeting there;
And would they tell of sunlight on her hair?

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

For Time shall cease with these deft strokes of pen
And in proud ink your memory live on;
All future eyes who read shall pause again,
And marvel too, these lines—my gold baton;
Thus may a poet’s hand out wrestle Time,
Or in rhymed writ, his spoil of grace forbid—
May poet’s wit ascend to heights sublime,
And with sweet words, fair beauty’s foe be rid.
Then this shall be your shrine forevermore;
Your shield against the ravages of age;
Your proof—the grandest charge a bard e’re bore;
Pure beauty’s truth, not just a poet’s rage.
Be this the hand that made the world stand still,
And your sweet grace outlast, by poet’s will.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

For love can turn to hate, and hearts to stone;
A joyous smile may twist to dreadful frown
And sweetest hopes can darken to a moan—
Within pure truth, dark lies may still be found.
The best perceived may yet become the worst;
The surest victory fall to rank defeat;
The staunchest friendship may, with time, be cursed;
Great fortunes razed to dismal and ruin complete.
Thus with bright light comes sable shadows deep;
Even golden sunshine yields to rain;
Into the roses’ heart, vile insects creep;
And wicked Time makes beauty seem profane.
But my love for you ever will stay strong;
Though Time conspires to make each right a wrong.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

How will you remember me when I am gone?
A zephyr or a wild raging storm,
A moonbeam or a lustrous ray at dawn,
Grey April, or a burnished August warm?
A raucous river or a placid lake,
A windswept plain, or yet a mountain grand;
Anfractuous wave or gentle ocean wake;
A jungle deep or stretch of golden sand?
I shall repose in sun, in wind, in rain,
The dark side of the moon, a silver star,
Great deserts, sure, and too, the watery main:
Near in your heart and yet at distance far.
May nature’s aspects ever be my shrine,
And their sweet forms, my silhouette in time.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Yours is a beauty that shall live in rhyme,
As ageless and timeless as those before;
In poet’s ink your memory reigns sublime,
If the hand that writ, is here excused compare.
Some speak of Nefertiti whose gaunt face
Stares out beyond the shifting Nubian sand,
And others yet, of Helen’s Trojan grace—
A murkish myth that epic Homer penned.
But relics of past beauty clearly show
In bronze, in gypsum, or in marbled stone,
The lengthened shadow that will often grow
From the sculpted lyrics of an antique song.
Thus, when these words are read in times to come—
No fairer beauty ever graced the sun.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

The ivory towers
Are feathered bowers
Where pompous asses sit.

With nose held high
They scan the sky
Convincing of their wit.

But what they’ve learned
Should best be burned
For good rare comes of it.

It’s to the man
With tinkers’ hands
That great ideas are knit.

When the lucres gone
They soon move on
And no one cares a whit.

So be aware
Where air gets rare
The act is but a skit.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.