Eugene Lee-Hamilton

Eugene Lee-Hamilton (1845-1907)

What the Sonnet Is

Fourteen small broidered berries on the hem

Of Circe's mantle, each of magic gold;

Fourteen of lone Calypso's tears that rolled

Into the sea, for pearls to come of them;

Fourteen clear signs of omen in the gem

With which Medea human fate foretold;

Fourteen small drops, which Faustus, growing old,

Craved of the Fiend, to water Life's dry stem.

It is the pure white diamond Dante brought

To Beatrice; the sapphire Laura wore

When Petrarch cut it sparkling out of thought;

The ruby Shakespeare hewed from his heart's core;

The dark, deep emerald that Rossetti wrought

For his own soul, to wear for evermore.

In dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships;

And gold doubloons, that from the drowned hand fell,

Lie nestled in the ocean-flower's bell

With love's old gifts, once kissed by long-drowned lips;

And round some wrought gold cup the sea-grass whips,

And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell,

Where sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell

And seek dim sunlight with their restless tips.

So lie the wasted gifts, the long-lost hopes

Beneath the now hushed surface of myself,

In lonelier depths than where the diver gropes;

They lie deep, deep; but I at times behold

In doubtful glimpses, on some reefy shelf

The gleam of irrecoverable gold.