Life, that cryptic play of no rehearsals,

So laden with misery and candied with bliss,

Is what he makes of it,

The mighty clay that shifts beneath

The fret of

The Sculptor.



A candle of idle whispers,

Or a furnace of palmy blaze and influence;

A dreary note of phantom harmony,

Or an epic fantasia of pith and passion;

A silent ripple that yields to the current,

Or a swelling tide that rolls across the boundless realms of blue;

These mortal judgments are cast

Upon the resolution of

The Sculptor.



Even though the wintry tempest of tears

Often harrows the sweet summer of mirth,

And as does the raven

Forever shadows the clown,

As they both caper across the stage,

He should bear the swarm of toils and horrors,

The dark throes that scourge the heart and flesh,

And mold his mortal clay into art,

For it's the only one he'll be granted.



And even though that midnight play is brief

With itchy Death holding the curtain ropes,

The mighty clay is supple beneath

The careful stroke of

The Sculptor