Poems (Hardy)/The sonnet
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For works with similar titles, see Sonnet.
Poems
SONNETS
THE SONNET
WRITE me a poem, fourteen liquid lines,—
The secret of a heart, the longing of a soul;
But mind your flowing numbers do not roll
Their waves beyond the exquisite confines
The little garden of the sonnet shines
Resplendent in; and mind you quite control
That golden strand of rimes,—one, two,—whose sole
Reiterance your major chord entwines.
Let not your hand a lingering moment waste
Till it has captured, where it floats and sings,
The birdlike thought you scarce can say you hear;
Back to its thicket, else, it hies, untraced,
And leaves the poor sestette with trailing wings,
And me without the verse I hold so dear.
The secret of a heart, the longing of a soul;
But mind your flowing numbers do not roll
Their waves beyond the exquisite confines
The little garden of the sonnet shines
Resplendent in; and mind you quite control
That golden strand of rimes,—one, two,—whose sole
Reiterance your major chord entwines.
Let not your hand a lingering moment waste
Till it has captured, where it floats and sings,
The birdlike thought you scarce can say you hear;
Back to its thicket, else, it hies, untraced,
And leaves the poor sestette with trailing wings,
And me without the verse I hold so dear.