SONNET
To her
dear Husband Deputy Judge
ELIAS BRENNER,
Upon the first day of January Anno 1691
My Friend! I ought of course on New Year gifts be musing
To the
extent my powers/ likewise my will were good/
And had
not lack of means for this in my way stood/
Then keenly
I would seek and something new be choosing/
Instead
my thoughts are fixed on bounties in full ration/
Which
are not found on sale in every grocer’s stall
And
which by women once were scarcely grasped at all/
I will
in well-turned rhymes a dozen lines/ now fashion/
I think
that such a gift to you will give most pleasure/
Which I
alone and no one else have laboured on/
For
secondhand things you find irksome beyond measure/
And I
think likewise and with you agree thereon
Nor
will I e’er relinquish the idea I treasure
That
borrowed feathers/ least of all befit a Swan.
Whoever
would reflect on where time’s always stealing
Should
note most carefully our newly started year/
It
greys so fast/ as snow and frost are both revealing/
It ages
even while its birth-day is still here.
It
first begins today/ and yet our end presages
The
more we gather years/ the fewer are our days/
Eternal
God most true/ no year turns back the pages/
Help us
in time to avert from this fair world our gaze!
Teach
us to well observe how short is our life’s season/
How our
approaching end each instant makes us feel/
To see
in all combined there is both rhyme and reason/
Our
life is frail as glass and time’s cogged wheel of steel.
1 comment:
To see the original poem, go to:
http://litteraturbanken.se/#!/forfattare/BrennerSE/titlar/PoetiskeDikter1/sida/201/etext
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