 | Areytos or songs and ballads of the South |  |
SONNET.—AND MUST I SING OF BEAUTY?
And must I sing of Beauty, and to thee—Thou in the precious sweetness of thy dawn?
Sing of thy youth, when mine is almost gone?
Sing of thy charms, when not again for me
Such fruit may blossom on life's blighted tree?
Thy loveliness, when but a single glance
Takes captive, binds, and never more sets free;
The whole soul fettered in a purple trance,
Where Love himself, renouncing liberty,
Delights in bonds, nor asks deliverance:
Submissive gladly to the power whose sway,
As heedless of the hunger of the slave,
As greedy of his homage, still must crave,
Nor notes the victim dying, day by day!
| Areytos or songs and ballads of the South | |