Thou walkedst in with words so honey-dipped,
Yet venom laced thy smile, so wide, so white.
A silken voice, but every virtue slipped,
For thou wert most in love with thy own light.
Thy praise, at first, did shine like summer gold,
Then turned to scorn when I began to bleed.
What grand illusions in thy lies I sold,
A peasant’s soul made feast for royal greed.
Thou craved a mirror, not a beating heart,
A shrine to self, not love in sacred skin.
I played the ghost in thy self-fashioned art,
While thou adored the mask thou wore within.
Yet truth, like dawn, did tear thy veil in twain
I found myself where I was bound by chain.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
May 2025
To Thee, My Sweet Divine
A Shakespearean Sonnet