University of Virginia Library


250

SONNET II
SHOULD I NOT RETURN?

Then should I not return, O love, to thee,
Finding none other bride by no far stream;
No voice that burns the soul with ecstasy,
No living passion sweeter than a dream?
Should I not, swiftly turning, shortly seem
Upon our moonlit cliff-top to alight,
Spreading broad spirit-pinions weird and white,
That strangely in the moonrays, vaguely, gleam?
Should I not laugh to think that I had dared
To search the future, when that future, snared
And captured, sweet within thine hands doth lie?
Should I not smile, returning, at the thought
That, foolish, I through future lands had sought
To rid me of the inevitable sky?