Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
Variations of Shakespeare
To Be, or Not To Be
Good mother..spirit of heaven! How have I come to be only of these nighted colored moods, for my countenance now bears solemn black rivers from my eyes, bearing dark valleys of emotion and unsettling winds of mind. What I have deep is of a kind that passes show...these nighted colored moods are but garments of woe
If only this rigid flesh would melt and resolve itself into dew. If only these dark cries of my soul would become few. O'God...God!! How weary and stale have all the uses of this world come to be. This world...it seems an unweeded garden that grows from any transient seed. Things rank and gross in this supposed heaven possess it entirely..that life should come to this?..that figments of my dark mind surfeit life
Through the judgments in my eye, I can only see vile wickedness...so many protracted lies, dark lusting spirits, and devourers of living auras..seeing only debaseness and crude callousness of self'serving spirits. Dear father spirit of the stars!..this conscience that gives me vision...does it only blind me?..to beauty hidden
As this conscience darkly bids revenge for severe travesty, I would be doomed to a life stirring and walking in the night, and confined in the day to the fires of hell in my mind. If only these fires would burn and purge this sorted hate. Aye! Hate..such a black hooded mood of coldness seeking in cold sweats for its ally, Revenge. Aye..Revenge..lurking about as a blood flushed ghoul dedicated to its own end. And in that end, for what?..but to keep those barbs of conscience rigid and sharpened, from which Hate will again rise and again resurrect Revenge
In this pit of self indignation, angels and ministers of grace, please defend me! Be a good spirit or a ghoulish rogue. Bring the blessings of this living heaven, or brimstone from hell. Deliver me, from this grey purgatory. Make known your intent...wicked or charitable. Please, do not let my soul burst in ignorance. Tell me why the canonized bones of my soul laying in death hast burst its shroud and opened the preponderous marble jaws of its coffin
What does this mean?..that this lifeless vexation in me rises for glimpses of the moon, to only make Right hideous, and I, a defiant fool of nature, so horridly shaken, seeks thoughts beyond the reaches of my soul. Why does this eternal mood of damnation grip me so? What?..must I know
This shard of mind, this mote in the eye is a legacy of hate I have of late..but from where, I know not. Lost is my mirth for beauty, my love for life, long since forgot. And indeed, this shard of mind weighs so heavy making this goodly park, the Earth, a barren place slipping into its sea. This most excellent canopy, the air...look! This brave everchanging firmament, this majestic roof adorned with golden fire...why, it appears to be no more than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors
And what a piece of work is humankind!! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties, how exact and fair in form and spirit, how like angels in appearance, how like gods in countenance...the beauty of the world!..the very paragon of animals
Yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?..that inspires this shard of mind, this mote in my eye
Now, that I am alone...what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this black pit of mind, this sorted hate in a dream of passion, is so wanton from its own conceit. From where?..does this phantom of mind arise. What darkness has given it form? What sea of tears has beared its journey? For it, I bear despair, and because of its deep, my tears, I must keep..its voice I must silence, or make the guilty mad, or terrify the free, or confound the ignorant into deeper darkness
Dull and weak spirited, I am compelled to darkly mope like a dreamer who upon waking, found themselves within a darker dream. And, I can say nothing, myself forsaking, for this dream of life is dark...it was not freely given
Am I a coward? Why am I so willing to offer my body as scraps of food for scavenger birds? This want to live is gentle as love..yet, how scoured it is from the bitter oppression of this vengeance! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, unnatural villain! Vengeance!..this pit of soul!..this dark apparition of mind packs my heart with the words and affections of a common prostitute
"To be, or not to be!! That is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep, and by a sleep forevermore, to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished...to die and lay to sleep..deep rest forever keep. And perchance, to dream a better dream! Aye!!..there's the rub, for in that sleep, what dreams may come must give us pause. To bear the whips and scorns of time..to endure the oppressor's wrongs, the proud man's arrogance, the deep pangs of dispised love, the law's impedance, the insolence of a pompous office..the spurns of base appetite seeking feeble restitutions of pleasure for the pains of labor...to grunt and sweat under a weary life!..but the greater dread of something after death, the unknown world, puzzles the Will, and makes us rather..bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of. Such respect of conscience deepens us all, and makes the hue of a death wish sickened with a pale color
Aye! It is by this respect that makes the calamities of life so long'lived..that not even in death!..can we poor ignorant mortals be sure that the posterior pains of living are left behind