Scrutinize my education,
Inspect my hungry brain,
Deny me my emancipation
From this callous game.

Peer into my conscience,
Judge not what it abhors,
There's nothing flesh, nor mind, nor sentiment
That can make me yours.

To treat you as a goddess would be wrong,
To bend before you, worship and entreat
Of you a glance perhaps, or kiss your feet,
That I might stay here, that I might belong
To you. To treat you this way would be sick,
Perverse, unnatural, and might so inspire,
From holy virtue, some unkind desire;
A tender rose that, sprouting thorns, would *****
My senses. Still, my eyes do flitter down,
So overwhelmed with beauty, not enured
Yet to your looks, and though I am so sure
That praying thus will cause your smile to frown.
That, had enough, you'll tire of me one day,
My love is such, I'll worship anyway.

Upon that day when all I know is lost,
I will thee love, and know it to be love.
Upon that day when fate's cold hand does shove
Mine eyes from yours – I then will know the cost
Of love – that warmth who's absence conjours frost
Upon my tortured breath, my every thought.
I'll know that love's affliction I have caught
On that cruel day when all I know is lost.
This thought my lady, does not ache my heart;
So full of you; for doubt it has no room.
You never, madam, will from my heart fall.
To death –I might add, from the very start–
I'd rather bear some grim, impending doom,
Than know that this was not love after all.

Though the sun will set,
Dimming hope and heat and life ;
Without the dark of blackest night,
There’d be no need for dawn.

In to the great void they bravely thunder,
Their frozen hands tightly, to gun stocks, grip.
Through upturned graveyards, knee deep in plunder,
Iron quivers chock full of hot leaden tip.

Through muddied coats their own blood is seeping,
Their deafened ears hearing the cold war cry.
This land is cut and will not stop bleeding ;
Naive hounds of war, these pups are let fly.

These fields were once lit in different red,
Bright flowers welcomed the warm breath of spring ;
Now hundreds sit wounded, scores more lie dead,
Cold winter silenced their grave offering.

In the distant mist a lone toll bell chimes ;
Even God can't un-draw this battle line.

We speak to put the world to rights,
We speak to make it clear.
We speak to read our thoughts aloud,
We speak to tell our fears.

We speak when we are spoken to,
We speak to be forgiven.
But if we could no longer speak,
Then we would have to listen.