O Pilgrim
Published on August 11, 2018
O Pilgrim
A Sonnet
William Daniell (British, 1769–1837)
This my long reconnaissance of the obscure
A survey wide of many a grim despair.
Dim my memory of those original heights
I grapple here below with nether mights.
These many wounds are a stage of the djinn
For a misery play in me to begin.
Tirelessly the script runs of singular woe
Through each tick of time by this foe.
I despair at my depleting fight
’Cause am emptied of my human might.
In this desolation birthed a luminous will
That could unflinching face every hell.
It said, “O Pilgrim, I wake now in thee,
My fire shall transmute thy every frailty”.