FOURTEEN SONNETS
1896
ALMA SDEGNOSA
Not that dull spleen which serves i' the world for scorn,
Is hers I watch from far off, worshipping
As in remote Chaldaea the ancient king
Adored the star that heralded the morn.
Her proud content she bears as a flag is borne
Tincted the hue royal; or as a wing
It lifts her soaring, near the daylight spring,
Whence, if she lift, our days must pass forlorn.
The pure deriving of her spirit-state
Is so remote from men and their believing,
They shrink when she is cold, and estimate
That hardness which is but a God's dismay:
As when the Heaven-sent sprite thro' Hell sped cleaving,
Only the gross air checkt him on his way.
THE WINDS' POSSESSION
When winds blow high and leaves begin to fall,
And the wan sunlight flits before the blast;
When fields are brown and crops are garnered all,
And rooks, like mastered ships, drift wide and fast;
Maid Artemis, that feeleth her young blood
Leap like a freshet river for the sea,
Speedeth abroad with hair blown in a flood
To snuff the salt west wind and wanton free.
Then would you know how brave she is, how high
Her ancestry, how kindred to the wind,
Mark but her flashing feet, her ravisht eye
That takes the boist'rous weather and feels it kind:
And hear her eager voice, how tuned it is
To Autumn's clarion shrill for Artemis.