 | The Uncollected Poems of Henry Timrod |  |
SONNET I
No wind, not even a fluttering breath had givenApparent motion to that land girt bay,
Still as the stagnant soul, the water lay
Sombre beneath the starless cope of Heaven,
Save where it met the shore, or rippled 'round
A few worn trunks that near it stood upright,
And there—broke into sparkling lines of light
Making a faint and yet not mournful sound.
An image, mused I, of our changeful life!
Dark must their course be ever, who repose
On joys [?] of sense, dead to all active good;
If happiness were rightly understood,
It would be won with struggles and with blows:
Our brightest moments are struck out in strife.
| The Uncollected Poems of Henry Timrod | |