 | Sonnets |  |
112
VII.
What if like those who tread some burning plain,
And, looking through bleared eyes, wherein is blown
The dust of men and cities overthrown,
See, as the gliding ghosts of all their slain
And desiccated joys, a shining main,
Fair ships, and paradises overgrown
With rain-washed flowers,—what, brothers, if our own
High hope were but such coinage of the brain?
And, looking through bleared eyes, wherein is blown
The dust of men and cities overthrown,
See, as the gliding ghosts of all their slain
And desiccated joys, a shining main,
Fair ships, and paradises overgrown
With rain-washed flowers,—what, brothers, if our own
High hope were but such coinage of the brain?
Nay, truth may vouch that of our desert-dreams
Not one but somewhere is the thing it seems;
Yet, were the phantoms nought but only fair,
In such hard strait this would make good their call:
They found us help, as men to rise or fall,
E'en in the barren womb of our despair.
Not one but somewhere is the thing it seems;
Yet, were the phantoms nought but only fair,
In such hard strait this would make good their call:
They found us help, as men to rise or fall,
E'en in the barren womb of our despair.
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