I often find my posits dreadful,
Happiness flies merely fleet,
So much compounds, accosts a headful
Angry, gnawing, awful heat!
In joyful sorrow I must live
For truest joy is not to be
And frightened by, as laws decree,
A final debt, a life to give.
(Then summons me, my last repose,
To Heavens Gate, that some suppose.)
I cannot shed this melanchol’,
So Viper-like time’s turbulence,
Nor sally forth ‘pon brevet fall,
Conning self in feckless hence
When plaintiff Hell wraths from my lips,
“O’ Fie! Ye craven Viper! Fie!
Why should it be that I must die?”,
By fevered brain’s convulsive flips.
(As if a Viper’s state be blamed
For thus which gives me abject pain.)
And in these throes of torrid temper
Comes a hummingbird in flight,
Engaged in moments: basic, simpler,
Perfect-formed wee aero-sprite!
So happily he flits about
When seeking nectar, bloom-by-bloom,
In flowers bright as peacock plumes
And worries not of Earthly doubts.
(For hummingbirds have innate sense
Of urbane thoughts and true pretense.)
His playful flight in mayful flutter
Sagely parries **** the trees
Through ev’ry leaf he flies a’scutter
Daring, as his heart will please!
My dearth, it seems, I now forget;
A tiny smile claims my face
And grows to full by levied grace
To pause my Earthly-borne regret!
(This newly forged respite from woe
Has cast away my pitied trow!)
What revelation rids my sadness
(All those worries disappear)
And what was anguish turns to gladness
Gone, the nagging mortal fears.
O’ they’ll return, I have no doubt,
To wrest my contemplative mind
But now assured that I can find
A joyful thought to fight such bout
I will forever carry near.
And to the hummingbird in flight
I’ll cherish how you drew my sight
To rid a foolish mortal’s tears.
(As hummingbirds will understand
The foibles taken by our hand.)