Poem by Alan Seeger

Thirty Sonnets. 8. Sonnet 8. Oft as by chance, a little while apart

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The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn,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

1. Thirty Sonnets. 5. Sonnet 5. A tide of beauty with returning May
2. Thirty Sonnets. 13. Sonnet 13. I fancied, while you stood conversing there
3. Tithonus
4. Thirty Sonnets. 15. Sonnet 15. Above the ruin of God's holy place
5. Thirty Sonnets. 6. Sonnet 6. Give me the treble of thy horns and hoofs

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