My Love My Spring

It was one of those amazing Spring days in Utah today, an ironic counterpoint to the sadness of the funeral for a good man too soon gone. My wife was with me; that made all difference.  This is an imitation of Shakespeare's sonnet 29, included below.

My Love My Spring
by Gideon Burton

When circled by the burst and thaw of Spring,
and yet resisting still its warming rays,
I sift the hours, adrift in moods less clean
than joy, a derelict of tepid haze,
wishing me like those who pray and act,
pious like her, like him with faith in tact,
admiring moods this mood will not attract,
so petty with my sins and so exact;
Yet pushing past this vast and thin contempt,
upward glancing, facing to the east,
my hands entwine with hers whose warmth's unspent;
my little meal's transformed into a feast.
   For when I'm low and turn toward my wife,
   the failing fails, and living turns to life.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: Luann Hawker, WholeGrainPhotography.net

Sonnet 29
by William Shakespeare


When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.