IT may be for the world of weeds and tares <br />And dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty's rose <br />That oft as Fortune from ten thousand shows <br />One from the train of Love's true courtiers <br />Straightway on him who gazes, unawares, <br />Deep wonder seizes and swift trembling grows, <br />Reft by that sight of purpose and repose, <br />Hardly its weight his fainting breast upbears. <br />Then on the soul from some ancestral place <br />Floods back remembrance of its heavenly birth, <br />When, in the light of that serener sphere, <br />It saw ideal beauty face to face <br />That through the forms of this our meaner Earth <br />Shines with a beam less steadfast and less clear.<br /><br />Alan Seeger<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-xiv-3/
