A Promise

Embrace why my dear friend die who must one day?
Why speak to silence that echoes what I say?
To grasp at bright and shining shadows why
If fleeting white, as clouds in deep blue of sky?
My spring is over, my summer at an end -
The scent of flowers sorrowed memories wend.
As blooms on casket where the corse abide,
My winter's chill they vainly try to hide.
I mourned first this drama of human clay;
Denying, unable to grasp the briefly play.
Then a peep was stolen, a pall put away:
A kingdom greater than a thousand regal sway;
A rest completer than death can ever fetch;
A peace the deepest oceans never can match.


This sonnet was written after reading Shelley's Ode to West Wind - "If Winter comes, can spring be far behind?"
I dedicate it to my father and hope I shall meet him again - perhaps in another age and under another sky...