A sonnet’s beauty’s mostly in the planning,
Not in the writing, reading, even saying.
The builder knows it’s in the careful laying
Of foundations before the brutal sweat of scanning
He finds his glory, Xanadu, still standing.
But watch, the towers’ walls have started swaying,
Bricks bursting, crashing from their heights, and spraying
And all that’s left’s a shallow, buried, landing.

When I consider what might have been, what was,
Though never seen by more forgiving eyes,
How every flame which briefly lit was ripped
To shroud in night my way, I sink, because
With flashing eyes and floating hair I sipped
But could not bare the milk of paradise.