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I THE SONNET is a fruit which long hath slept | |
| And ripen’d on life’s sun-warm’d orchard-wall; | |
| A gem which, hardening in the mystical | |
| Mine of man’s heart, to quenchless flame hath leapt; | |
| A medal of pure gold art’s nympholept | 5 |
| Stamps with love’s lips and brows imperial; | |
| A branch from memory’s briar, whereon the fall | |
| Of thought-eternalizing tears hath wept: | |
| A star that shoots athwart star-steadfast heaven; | |
| A fluttering aigrette of toss’d passion’s brine; | 10 |
| A leaf from youth’s immortal missal torn; | |
| A bark across dark seas of anguish driven; | |
| A feather dropp’d from breast-wings aquiline; | |
| A silvery dream shunning red lips of morn. | |
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II There is no mood, no heart-throb fugitive, | 15 |
| No spark from man’s imperishable mind, | |
| No moment of man’s will, that may not find | |
| Form in the Sonnet; and thenceforward live | |
| A potent elf, by art’s imperative | |
| Magic to crystal spheres of song confin’d: | 20 |
| As in the moonstone’s orb pent spirits wind | |
| ’Mid dungeon depths day-beams they take and give. | |
| Spare thou no pains; carve thought’s pure diamond | |
| With fourteen facets, scattering fire and light:— | |
| Uncut, what jewel burns but darkly bright? | 25 |
| And Prospero vainly waves his runic wand, | |
| If spurning art’s inexorable law | |
| In Ariel’s prison-sphere he leave one flaw. | |
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III The Sonnet is a world, where feelings caught | |
| In webs of phantasy, combine and fuse | 30 |
| Their kindred elements ’neath mystic dews | |
| Shed from the ether round man’s dwelling wrought; | |
| Distilling heart’s content, star-fragrance fraught | |
| With influences from the breathing fires | |
| Of heaven in everlasting endless gyres | 35 |
| Enfolding and encircling orbs of thought. | |
| Our Sonnet’s world hath two fix’d hemispheres: | |
| This, where the sun with fierce strength masculine | |
| Pours his keen rays and bids the noonday shine; | |
| That, where the moon and the stars, concordant powers, | 40 |
| Shed milder rays, and daylight disappears | |
| In low melodious music of still hours. | |
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