Sweet Love, Your Cheek Is Pale

Sweet love, your cheek is pallid and your crest Is laid with spleens of winter’s iron rage. Your lip is faint, and your heart now does rest Within the bowelled dungeons of sore age. Your kiss, once but a touch of summer’s blood Is now a stab of winter’s dreary gripe, And your eyes now are with miasmas fraught. Your soul presents no flower or fruit, ripe. The visions of your dream have been expelled By wanton winds that o’er the canyons sweep And love that you within your gaze beheld Has sunk within eternal, frosted sleep. That isn’t so: when summer’s ripening Sweet blossoms on your pallid face, then spring. © 2013 Gleb Zavlanov