The day...

The day dawns bright and clear - with smiles and sparkles and happiness and cheer.
Work to do and things to finish - the smile sets forth to complete these with a relish

Targets to reach and miles to go, the day flies by with a smile on show
The day goes by and the smile wonders why?
Why are the challenges just piling by
The smile disappears and the sparkle dims, desperation and tiredness creeps from within.

Hope comes out and cheers ahead, the smile which faltered shows her head.
Time stretches as the smile and sorrow fight, who is the winner and whose is the worst plight
Smile and sorrow both side by side, as they fight for their time in the night

The evening draws to a close and the night looms ahead, but it seems as though the smile has gone abed.
Where is the smile, the sparkle beheld? No one knows where it has fled.

As night draws near, the sparkle is dead. The one sought for is gone abed.
With the smile and the sparkle out of the way, comes desperation and tears charging ahead.

Things that seemed bright and sunny seem drab and dreary.
The challenges that cowered in front of the smile, now rain upon with a vengeance that has no guile.
Tears filled eyes and a sorrowful face, beckons all those horrid dreams to face.

As things seem to take a turn for worse, as they say - the eyes get closed to await the next day.
The night goes by and dawn draws clear - again with the smile in front and the sparkle in the rear.

She Walks in Beauty: A Women's Journey

I came across this book. The title seemed intriguing and I turned the pages. It was a book with a collection of poems.  I don't make it a point to read many poems, though there are a few that catch my attention and rivet me to the spot while I savor the beauty of the words.

As I flipped through the pages of the book, I realized that the author had actually compiled poems of different poets and segregated them in categories. The write up on the categories and the poems put in seemed exquisite. After going through a few poems, I have decided to slow down and and savor the poems and share those that I really enjoy.

To start off, and to end this post, is one poem that I came across in this book. As I read this poem, I realized that I had come across this years ago and it was something that had stuck to my mind. This a poem by Christopher Marlowe who was considered the foremost Elizabethian tragedian. A dramatist and poet, he has a few plays and poetry to his name. The poem I read,

From Hero and Leander,

It lies not in our power to love or hate,

For will in us is over-rul'd by fate.

When two are stript, long ere the course begin,

We wish that one should lose, the other win;

And one especially do we affect

Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:

The reason no man knows, let it suffice,

What we behold is censur'd by our eyes.

Where both deliberate, the love is slight:

Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?

I understand, this is but an excerpt of the entire poem. If such beautiful lines are just a part of the entire poem, then how would it be in its entirety. Shakespeare too has used the same lines in his play As You Like It.  Looking forward to a days spent reading the poem and Shakespeare's plays in entirety...and also to rest of the poems from this wonderful book.