Sonnets

...This its tomb instead That was its pleasure-place...

...Michael Williams...

...Yet, by this tree, Still sit the ancient lovers—you and I. Witter Bynner...

...Forgive, And lay your hand upon my heart again...

...And now, though doubting thoughts may strive to wrong Thy spirit's knowledge, and thy flesh be weak As all flesh is, thy soul through all time's ruth Doth hold its faith...

...Poet Beauty, veiled in dream, appeared to thee One midnight when consenting stars were bright, Clear symbols of the Uncreated Light...

...March 17, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 525 SONNETS The Charted Skies Before you took the heavens at a bound— Young airman, with the star-winds in your hair— You had precursors on the floods of air...

...Who drink the chilly dew of sacrifice, More bitter than quassia, more divinely sweet Than orange flowers when earth and morning meet, They will grow strong, they will grow pure and wise In mind and heart and spirit, and their eyes, Learning the radiance of the Paraclete, Will shine with their deep loving, and repeat Moods of the manifold light of paradise...

...This was where the breeze Found lovers happy-laden with their ease Of love...

...Spring after spring they tack into the gale, The fleets of robins, bluebirds, flying north— Who marked the course that these armadas sail, Who bids their comings and their goings forth...

...Do not disdain My dreams like passion-flowers—mere fugitive Whirled petals round a depth of gold...

...Grace Hazard Conkling...

...A certain humor laid him by the heels, A whim of doubting that requires a mild Disloyalty to reason, yet conceals The uncalculating wisdom of a child...

...thy sacramental song, Ineffably felicitous, doth speak Beauty's eternal word that is the truth...

...Those deeps no plummet made of man can sound Yielded a roadstead all the birds had found Out of creation's morning...

...There where your wings break on resisting tides The frail craft of the swallow dreaming rides...

...Yet without love the chilly draught were vain, Vain were the raptureless, astringent vow...

...avor Sacrifice It was not really that his heart forsook Familiar pastures, that he found no food, No water of the spirit, in the Book To sweeten faith and strengthen fortitude...

...Quoting Lucretius, he became—at least To some of us—too seriously concerned With worldly knowledge for a parish priest— The green lamp in his study burned and burned . . . Dear man, devout and kindly to a fault, He thought God's bread might have a pinch of salt...

...It shall obey you, learning gradual Secrets of rhythm...

...And see How broken is the ancient stone, how dead The ancient vigor...

...Leslie Nelson Jennings...

...And when in surging monotone the sea Sang runic rhythms of high mystery, She led thy soul through gates concealed of night Unto that altar, where with mystic rite Our poets—priests—are sealed to sanctity...

...Since love is honey for quassia, light on dew, And finds no beauty in unhallowed pain, Burn, O Most Holy, burn within me now, % Lest I forswear the ardor that I knew...

...Charles L. O'Donnell...

...Delicate and cool Shall be my thinking . . . You were barely gone When with no cry, no whisper of wings at all, No least reflection in the frozen pool, Beauty went over like a winter swan...

...Free and fair, Their sails were spread or any mariner With viking triumph of the sky was crowned...

...I -would live More reasonably, be more sensitive To thought that is the mind's restoring rain Groping for roots of things...

...Jtike a Winter Swan Forgive me now this hot impetuous brain Devising dreams forever...

...Marguerite Wilkinson...

...No more the fountains dance, but rigid lie In mummy-cloth of moss and weeds...

...The Ancient Lovers This was a vigorous place, with pointed trees, With marble figures and a colonnade, With fountains agile as a shimmery maid Dancing in moonlight...

...And here tomorrow was today, Today was yesterday . . . until decay Dragged in from shade to shade its pitted knees...