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Sonnet Sixteen by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet XVI

by William Shakespeare

 

But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?

And fortify yourself in your decay

With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

And many maiden gardens yet unset

With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,

Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

So should the lines of life that life repair,

Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,

Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,

Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.

To give away yourself keeps yourself still,

And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

 

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Sonnet 16

Bicycle Crashes

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Bicycle Crashes

As a kid, I was always crashing my bike - into cars. I know that I crashed my bike at least 5 times into just as many cars, which were usually just innocently parked on the street. The sad part of the story is that most of these crashes could probably have been prevented if I had only lost my fascination with my back wheel.

I loved to watch it turn. As an adult, I'm still too preoccupied with the traffic behind me, and the only correction I remember receiving about driving from my Dad was "Stop looking in the rearview mirror.”

For some odd reason, I remember being fascinated with the wheel under and behind me. Maybe I was worried it wasn't working right, or I was looking for the source of a strange noise. But I really think it was just my excitement about the mechanical marvel that is a bicycle.

The saddest part of the story is that I actually looked at the back wheel when I was close to a car, and then suddenly, I was on the ground and wondering what had happened. I don't think I ever stopped to think about the car owners, to tell them about what I had done to their car. I'm sure I slashed tires and dented fenders, but usually I was limping home instead of wondering whose car was the latest victim.

The worst case ever was when I went over the handlebars onto the street. The only bad thing about being male is the dangling dangers which can suddenly meet up with sharp handlebar bolts. I won't bother to explain if you don't already get it, but suffice it to say that I didn't report this accident to my mother. I was too embarrassed, being only eight years old.

The only other serious injury from bicycling came from making the mistake of riding barefooted. You really don't think about how hard the asphalt is until you drag your big toe across a strip of it. I must have dragged my toe for a foot or more, and it was excruciating. It swelled up and turned blue. I had a ridiculously painful throbbing later and the toenail had to be pierced with another hot needle to release the blood behind it. The toenail eventually fell off, and a replacement grew back. It was quite attractive, if I do say so myself.

I wish I could say that my bicycle incidents stopped when I graduated to the hottest thing of its day -- the ten-speed bicycle. Back then, they were incredibly heavy and unstable compared with today's bikes. I even got to repaint my bike after it had been in enough crashes. It was a candy-apple red with sparkles in it that started to peel off almost as soon as it was painted. But that bike saw me through thick and thin.

One way to certainly injure myself was learning to drive this newly acquired machine with no hands. The older guys did it, and based on my accidents when I was younger, I tried to make sure I was always far away from cars when I practiced this precision-balanced insanity. I learned to be able to ride with my arms folded across my chest as I traveled down Redwood Road, one of the highest-traffic roads in my area. Going fast always helped, but when you crashed, it hurt more.

We lived on a pretty steep hill in Bennion, which was great when you were going downhill and not so great going uphill. The first time I went too fast down the hill I also tried to turn on the canal road. The good news was that I was already past the canal as I realized I was going too fast. The gravel on the other side of the road slipped my wheels out from under me as soon as I made the mistake of putting on the brakes. The bike went sideways right into the large ditch. I slid for a while on the road before also being unceremoniously dumped into the ditch, having the unique experience of dragging my palms across two or three feet of gravel before my ignominious landing. I sat at the bottom of a deep ditch with bleeding palms filled with gravel, wondering how long it would take me to limp back up the hill and get bandaged.

Or I could just tough it out, wipe the blood on my pants and get on my way to wherever it was I was hurrying to so fast. I think I must have been going to baseball practice, so I took it like a man. I gingerly rubbed my scraped up hands on my pants until most of the gravel was gone and then went to practice.

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Abundance Potential Aug 1

Go to daneallred.com for more selections, including other original pieces by Dane Allred and his audio versions of many famous novels, short stories and poems called Literature Out Loud, plus lots more!! This is the complete episode of Abundance called Potential from August 1st.

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SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS

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Sonnet Fifteen by William Shakespeare

 

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Sonnet  XV

by William Shakespeare

 

When I consider everything that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;

When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory;

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,

To change your day of youth to sullied night;

And all in war with Time for love of you,

As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

 

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Sonnet 15

Sonnet Fourteen by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet  XIV

by William Shakespeare

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;

And yet methinks I have astronomy,

But not to tell of good or evil luck,

Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;

Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,

Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,

Or say with princes if it shall go well,

By oft predict that I in heaven find:

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

And, constant stars, in them I read such art

As truth and beauty shall together thrive,

If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;

Or else of thee this I prognosticate:

Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

 

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Sonnet 14

Sonnet Thirteen by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet  XIII

by William Shakespeare

 

O, that you were yourself! But, love, you are

No longer yours than you yourself here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give.

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination: then you were

Yourself again after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honor might uphold

Against the stormy gusts of winter's day

And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know

You had a father: let your son say so.

 

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Sonnet 13

Sonnet Twelve by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet  XII

by William Shakespeare

When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

And summer's green all girded up in sheaves

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must go,

Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake

And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defense

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

 

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Sonnet 12

Sonnet Eleven by William Shakespeare

 

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Sonnet XI

by William Shakespeare

As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest

In one of thine, from that which thou departest;

And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest

Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.

Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase:

Without this, folly, age and cold decay:

If all were minded so, the times should cease

And threescore year would make the world away.

Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,

Harsh featureless and rude, barrenly perish:

Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;

Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:

She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby

Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

 

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Sonnet 11

Together by Dane Allred

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Together

by Dane Allred

When I think of us together,

I smile.

There is something we are when we are in each other’s company.

Something that doesn’t exist when we are apart.

The two of us together make up more than two.

We have a family,

But those children aren’t us.

We have a home,

But that home isn’t us.

When you reach out and take my hand,

That is when we combine

Into one thought,

One purpose

That is us.

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Potential by Dane Allred

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Potential

by Dane Allred

You have unlimited potential.

As an intelligence, you have existed forever.

Deep down inside you know this to be true.

You were never created, but have always been.

We were in that Bright Space together,

Our experiences shared,

Knowing all there was to know.

We knew there was more possible.

There was more we could achieve.

But that meant leaving the Bright Space

And all that we had ever known.

That also meant we would forget

All that we had ever known.

We are here to learn all we can before

We return to the Bright Space.

We will all be together again.

But until then we are here to do something.

That thing you are here to do.

That inner potential you carry about with you,

That can help you accomplish

Those things you need to do.

The prospect of what will be lives in you.

We are pools of unlimited potential.

When we see all that is possible for ourselves,

When we consider all we could achieve,

There is that promising glint

Of what could be,

Of what might be.

Only you know what that is.

Watch for that spark of familiarity

Next time you seem to recognize someone.

That person you meet who it seems you have seen before.

The person who you seem to have met before.

Somewhere.

Someplace.

They may be here to help you accomplish that thing you need to do.

Or you may just be recognizing someone

You once knew from very long ago.

As the Universe shrinks,

And we find ourselves acquainted

With those we were with before,

The potential of the universe expands,

When we work together now to learn all there is to learn.

When we are all together again in that Bright Space,

We will share all we have come to know

As only we could know

As we live our own individual lives,

Apart, and yet connected with all the power of the Universe.

There is nothing we cannot accomplish together.

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The Complete Collection of

SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS

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