Oft as by chance, a little while apart <br />The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, <br />Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, <br />Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: <br />Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe <br />Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus, <br />Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw <br />Seem a new heaven and earth so marvelous; <br />But, clad thenceforth in iridescent dyes, <br />The fair world glistens, and in after days <br />The memory of kind lips and laughing eyes <br />Lives in my step and lightens all my face, -- <br />So they who found the Earthly Paradise <br />Still breathed, returned, of that sweet, joyful place.<br /><br />Alan Seeger<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-viii-6/
