Sonnet for Thursday, November 21, 2024

Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God

BY JOHN DONNE

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you 

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; 

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend 

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. 

I, like an usurp'd town to another due, 

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; 

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, 

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue. 

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain, 

But am betroth'd unto your enemy; 

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, 

Take me to you, imprison me, for I, 

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, 

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Sonnet for Wednesday, November 20, 2024

 [Sonnet]

BY GEORGE HENRY BOKER

Brave comrade, answer! When you joined the war,

    What left you? “Wife and children, wealth and friends,

    A storied home whose ancient roof-tree bends

    Above such thoughts as love tells o’er and o’er.”

Had you no pang or struggle? “Yes; I bore

    Such pain on parting as at hell’s gate rends

    The entering soul, when from its grasp ascends

    The last faint virtue which on earth it wore.”

You loved your home, your kindred, children, wife;

    You loathed yet plunged into war’s bloody whirl!—

    What urged you? “Duty! Something more than life.

That which made Abraham bare the priestly knife,

    And Isaac kneel, or that young Hebrew girl

    Who sought her father coming from the strife.”

An approximation to God ...

Laughter

BY RÜŞTÜ ONUR

TRANSLATED BY ULAŞ ÖZGÜN & HÜSEYIN ALHAS

A tree and a fruit,

And this golden lip

On the coral cups

                        —laughter ...

A step song

                        —and another.

The fruit of tranquility,

And the secret of becoming

Fill up this bowl.

Stop this pretense

This is a moment of becoming:

An approximation to God ...

I live in my own world under my hat.

Contentment

BY RÜŞTÜ ONUR

TRANSLATED BY HÜSEYIN ALHAS & ULAŞ ÖZGÜN

No harm would I pose

To the bee in its hive

To the bird in its nest;

I live in my own world

Under my hat.

It is my contentment that makes

Me smile without reason on the streets;

It is my heart,

The source of this raving frenzy.

I am not silent, I can’t keep quiet

Like the dead beneath the dirt

In the midst of this sweet world.