ON A BOOK OF SONNETS
A book of sonnets! Here are letters taken
From life's illuminated alphabet;
Some in a grey ground, some in scarlet set;
Some in a dust of starry spangles shaken
From midnight skies. Others there be that waken
To a strange life of their own (and so forget
The hand's cunning that made them) stranger yet
Than any lived since Eden was forsaken.
Here is a crystal, here a star, a flower,
And here a voice like a great organ-tone,
That shapes itself, that shines, unveils a face
Fair as a face in dreams, that in its hour
Makes wondrous music; each living its own
Life, perfect, with inimitable grace.
A book of sonnets! Here are letters taken
From life's illuminated alphabet;
Some in a grey ground, some in scarlet set;
Some in a dust of starry spangles shaken
From midnight skies. Others there be that waken
To a strange life of their own (and so forget
The hand's cunning that made them) stranger yet
Than any lived since Eden was forsaken.
Here is a crystal, here a star, a flower,
And here a voice like a great organ-tone,
That shapes itself, that shines, unveils a face
Fair as a face in dreams, that in its hour
Makes wondrous music; each living its own
Life, perfect, with inimitable grace.