Sonnet 20: The sun’s cold eye

Sonnet 20: Upon the heavens glares the sun’s cold eye

Upon the heavens glares the sun’s cold eye

Afear’d the traveler walks askance

The gloaming shadows fall awry

Sol ages his brow in recompense.

For Fortuna does he reach and weep,

From gardens he was cast asunder,

Yet deaf, dumb and blind he traces the graves,

Awaiting to be swallowed under.

Nature’s hand hath painted the fickly glass,

Beyond the trees her song reflected,

Broken it lies in eyes of mine,

Imperfect shades alone suspected.

A tattered rose, of small held worth,

Will nary last the youngest season,

So too doth affairs past fade,

And along with, time quarrels the reason.

Helios tends with jealous thought, to the barrenness of his arid field,

With gentle hands th’earth was wrought, with thunder gentleness repealed,

So oft mine hands to it return,

To dare the majesty of light,

So oft the eye my spirit burns

Enfeebled by the very sight.

O Hyperion! To thou I swear amends,

To stay the dawn’s grasping fingers,

The clock face enshrined marches on,

Once past never brought to linger.

Thy conquests I doth defy,

To shy away from sight or sound, 

The sweet crystal of thy beauteous voice,

And fairness of thy golden crown.

Yet the damnéd play of time,

Returns gaze once more to cold eye’s wrath,

And thus mine head I bow once more;

To return my heart to the veiléd path.

A name lies in the corner of the parchment crumpled in the waste bin. It was scraped out with a quill.