While All Things Are Not In Man's Control (Swinburne Roundel) Poem by Gert Strydom

A virus out of control is dangerous to humans on the earth
begins in China with devastation as its goal,
while God's angels protects straight from birth.
A virus out of control.

is deadly to humans while to resistance there is dearth,
where I love you by my heart and my soul,
it seems not even life is something worth.
A virus out of control,

as it infects people with speed cause them not to gather or trod
while danger is abundant on each corner and street,
where in prayer we do call on the omnipotent Lord God
as it infects people with speed.

In the Southern Hemisphere it came in the summer heat,
while seedlings and fruit sprouted from the fruitful sod
and was to the taste satisfying and sweet,

the virus had its incubation period,
in a few months it did its attacks complete,
seemed to all the world secretive and odd,
as it infects people with speed.

To the hands with the things people normally sought
a change has come as infection grew in all the lands
while as a gift, death, the Satan brought
to the hands.

Where my darling our love still lasting stands,
you are in each memory and thought,
while everywhere death's carrier expands.

Before all of this we knew of this thing nought,
while so many flowers I planted for you on the sands
and daily their beauty and fragrance was brought
to the hands.

Your lovely eyes in green-brown splendour knew
the sun as it did rise and went dim in the skies
but now nobody knows what is up anew.
Your lovely eyes

are dimmed by sleep and bright when you rise,
while daily in this time God do carry you through
and you believe we will see each other in paradise.

Although the sky in this winter still do remain open and blue
and everywhere the virus man's technology decries,
your character and love does remain true and sorrow bedew
your lovely eyes.

Is our existence strange and tranquil the cobalt sky?
Where a pestilence makes the entire world its range,
why it came and now do effect humans we know not why,
is our existence strange?

Is the entire world but a primitive sorrowful grange?
There is a glorious palace up somewhere high,
while from God Satan did all humans estrange.

Where here once that beautiful Eden did pass by.
by the choice of man to pre-history came a huge change,
where now amidst a virus we do sigh,
is our existence strange?

As an angel without wings by name you are beautiful and fair
and I know your figure, its curves and your frame,
where by character you do for others care
as an angel without wings by name.

Soft hearted straight from heaven you came,
do other people's worries bear,
do lift them up from a life of shame

and this kind of humanity is nowadays far too rare,
where you view all humans as exactly the same,
are of the grief and heartaches of others aware,
as an angel without wings by name.

[Poet's notes the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere of the earth are opposite to those in the Northern Hemisphere.
In the introduction of a poetry volume of Algernon Charles Swinburne it says that he devised the poetic form called the roundel, which is a variation of the French Rondeau form.I know the French Rondeau form (that had also been popular with Dutch poets)and the French roundel form (called in English the Roundel Prime/)The French roundel is well know under French, Dutch and Flemish poets especially the roundels of the French duke Charles d'Orléans.This type of poem set high demands on the poet with refrains and limited rhyming of only a an b and run to fourteen or thirteen verse-lines and is very different from this roundel form devised by Algernon Charles Swinburne and I am not very familiar with this roundel form but have encountered it in a very short English poem by the Afrikaans poet ID Du Plessis. I have written this poem of mine on the verse-form as in the poem: "A baby's death" by Algernon Charles Swinburne on which the composer Sir Edward Elgar wrote the music for the song roundel: "The little eyes that never knew light."]
© Gert Strydom