Her courts are by the flux of flaming ways, <br />Between the rivers and the illumined sky <br />Whose fervid depths reverberate from on high <br />Fierce lustres mingled in a fiery haze. <br />They mark it inland; blithe and fair of face <br />Her suitors follow, guessing by the glare <br />Beyond the hilltops in the evening air <br />How bright the cressets at her portals blaze. <br />On the pure fronts Defeat ere many a day <br />Falls like the soot and dirt on city-snow; <br />There hopes deferred lie sunk in piteous seams. <br />Her paths are disillusion and decay, <br />With ruins piled and unapparent woe, <br />The graves of Beauty and the wreck of dreams.<br /><br />Alan Seeger<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-ii-8/
