V ['original version']
We're all conceived beneath the worst of stars,
and all our acts are bound to bear bad fruit.
No matter how we struggle, life's grim scars
keep showing we're unwholesome to the root.
Such webs of circumstance envelop us,
we soon feel doomed to nothing but despair.
Our bother, hurry, misery, and fuss
allow us little chance to grow aware.
Yet, though we slog like madmen to our graves
and scarcely heed the ruin we create,
we have our joys and each of us behaves
with more nobility than words can state.
If life is hopeless, we can still be glad
some goodness prospers even in what's bad.

5 ['streamlined version']
That sorry skies quite govern how we're hatched
compels our every act to bear bad fruit
whose many miseries must breed a patched
confusion that does little but pollute.
Sad circumstances re-envelop us
and quickly doom our worlds and make despair
perform a frolicking that is a fuss
that undermines life's wish to conquer care.
We somehow madly reach decrepit graves
and scarcely heed the ruin we create
but also somehow form ferocious waves
that say that nobleness must be our state.
Life's hopelessness apparently permits
a badness that includes a grace that fits.

Hey Bruce I enjoyed reading the original version and the streamlined version of your fifth sonnet. Good sonnets. ~Scott

Dear **Scott**: Many thanks! My efforts as 'a sonneteer' I take seriously; however, I somehow must practically know that the English language remains far beyond me. The 'SONNET FORM' ---- however ---- may permit some raaaaather purposive striving? Thank you again.