SONNET ON THE SONNET
by: Alfred Douglas (1870-1945)
- O see the moment holds a madrigal,
- To find some cloistered place, some hermitage
- For free devices, some deliberate cage
- Wherein to keep wild thoughts like birds in thrall;
- To eat sweet honey and to taste black gall,
- To fight with form, to wrestle and to rage,
- Till at the last upon the conquered page
- The shadows of created Beauty fall.
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- This is the sonnet, this is all delight
- Of every flower that blows in every Spring,
- And all desire of every desert place;
- This is the joy that fills a cloudy night
- When bursting from her misty following,
- A perfect moon wins to an empty space.
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POEMS BY ALFRED DOUGLAS |
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