Sonnet Fourteen For Will

If I’ve become the thing that I beheld: / I’ll face my reckoning without excuse. / I will not say this hopeful pilgrim fell / Because of bad companions, or abuse./ When I am become useless in the fight/ To hold the standard higher than the dust,/ I will not say the shadows of the night / Convinced me that I could no longer trust / My map and compass. Dawn would come betimes,/ And light the righteous path for those who cared / To face the morning: I preferred to climb / Back into bed, and nestle with despair. / Shall I, who chose a safer, slower death / Now panic as I come to my last breath?