If I Were Right There With You (Italian Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

(for Annelize, after John Keats)

If I were right there with you, you would hear my sighs
that for many years I have been under your sweet spell
and of this day and my love I would be able to tell,
by passion and sincerity be armed for love's enterprise,

be armed like a heroic soldier whose enemy dies,
or a ancient lord whose breast proudly do swell,
or a ancient farmer gathering his flock in the dell
who would be trembling by the look in your eyes,

yet still I do truly love you and to me you are sweet,
you are the picture of how the loveliest woman should be
and your smile, your lips and arms are no intoxication
where I do constantly long for you and want you to meet,
as you are truly wonderful and the likeness of an angel to me
but alas I have no rite or any kind of real incantation.

[Reference:‘To ***** Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs" by John Keats.]

© Gert Strydom