Purchase Thy Smile
Sonnet-An Invocation to the Master #262

A rigged game is this, a battle one-sided,
The end determined at moment of birth
As night is certain when sun has dawned,
A season of toils with pause by death.
What is my piffling breath beside these,
Nature primordial and Thou immutable,
The haloed gods and pitiless demons
Frame a picture of all agencies hostile.
But now it ends, I shall strive no more,
Claim Thy victory from my being prone,
A trophy add to Thy haloed lore
Violently wrested, a prize unjustly won.
Purchase then Thy smile from my defeat,
Even in my fall Thy pleasure I’ll deny not.