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214 • OR THOMETRY. |
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SUBSTITUTION.
Where some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, fadeth suddenly,
And silence against which you dare not cry, Aches round you like a strong disease and new— What hope ? What help ? What music will undo
That silence to your sense ? Not friendship's sigh,
Not reason's subtle count, not melody Of violo, nor of pipes that Faunus blew; Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales
Whose hearts leap upward through the Cypress-trees To the clear moon ; nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet All hails Met in the smile of God : Nay, none of these.
Speak Thou, availing Christ! and fill this pause.
Mrs. Browning.
LOST DAYS.
The lost days of my life until to-day,
What are they, could I see them on the street
Lie as they fell ? would they be ears of wheat Sown once for good but trodden into clay ? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay ?
Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet ?
Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway ? I do not see them here ; but after death
God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.
" I am thyself—what hast thou done to me ?" " And I—and I—thyself," (lo ! each one saith,)
"And thou thyself to all eternity."
D. G. Rossetti.
The last two examples are extremely irregular; by many they would not be considered sonnets at |
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