Alas! My Mind Runs Dry

An Elizabethan sonnet...

Alas! my mind runs dry; I cannot draw
Upon a single thought to thus inspire
My thirsty Muse. What woe, there is no law,
No protocol to which it will aspire
To yield the merry sweetness of a rhyme!
And shall I be thus hindered, by a tongue
So dry it is a mocking pantomime
Of speech? Ah, no! Ere praise was sung
To honor that high altar of the Muse,
There was a higher, nobler sound of sense
That rang,-- bright, clear, and loud, lest one should lose
The echo of its harmony. And hence
When Muses fail, I take their Precedence
And flaunt before them an Intelligence.

~