Initiate

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Initiate

Sonnet — An Invocation to the Master #330

I have drunk of the bitter world brew
Seated in my muse’s pondering chamber,
Every theme malignant and untrue
Unto my lips their ferments pour.

As the last songbird that must yet sing
For the empty boughs and absent ears
I must meet all this meaning nothing,
My soul-flame burning in empty spaces.

I suffer many exiles unto the heights
And banishment to the depths endure,
Every tenure a burden unyielding imposes 
As if of its ending moment unsure.

Am I Thy initiate of some sore new penances
And these just harsh preludes for a novice?