When rhymes forsake me, my pen's then bled dry;
and eloquent lines rich in metaphor
die before the inkwell's used up, here and by:
for the once-teeming storehouse reservoirs
of song flee my page, though write in hope I try!
“How to awaken the dead muse again?”
I plead. “O what answer, what remedy
are main: the keys to my mind's creative drain!?”
So, in distress, to God I make my plea.
I let the tired fields of my mind lie fallow:
and as time passed, my pen regains its powers;
so new strains sing unwan and unsallow,
and antique odes on clouds and daffodil flowers
may refresh this infant, newborn sonnet,
with life from this present time, and planet.
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