. <br />Where winter's ragged comb courses my crown <br />Its subtle brush applies the mortal truth, <br />Life's lived through time and time will life confound <br />Leased long enough to rue a wasted youth, <br />I'll see soon fifty Autumns on this lease, <br />Am wise enough to fathom that it wanes, <br />Mayst day allot an ample light ere cease <br />Sufficient hours that modest words make plain <br />How in the finite space that breath bestow'st <br />A man had come to rise above the clay <br />Keen he that twilight bide when he's made ghost <br />Elude dark night until his scribed essay, <br />Sun's chariot your golden pilgrimage, <br />Pray tarry for a life too soon abridged. <br />Enobled he once known as Avon's Bard <br />Addressed fair youth in his first score of sonnets; <br />Release thine seed and thwart time's brisk boneyard, <br />Endure beyond life's curse, death's mark upon it, <br />Will couldn't know his tree by time decreased, <br />How paper, words are his posterity, <br />I'm cheered to find this beauty in death's beast, <br />Such light at dusk a gift of clarity, <br />Perchance the warmth thus found in Autumn's fire <br />Emits just flame enough to stay death's chill, <br />Redeems a life misspent too oft' in ire, <br />In such twilight yet burns a nova's quill, <br />Night need not be mere shadow masking fear, <br />Graves cannot snuff such light, our words, Shakespeare.<br /><br />Richard S. Wells<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/william-shakespeare-whispering/
