MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS

What chilly cloister or what lattice dim

Cast painted light upon this careful page?

What thought compulsive held the patient sage

Till sound of matin bell or evening hymn?

Did visions of the Heavenly Lover swim

Before his eyes in youth, or did stern rage

Against rash heresy keep green his age?

Had he seen God, to write so much of Him?

Gone is that irrecoverable mind

With all its phantoms, senseless to mankind

As a dream's trouble or the speech of birds.

The breath that stirred his lips he soon resigned

To windy chaos, and we only find

The garnered husks of his disused words.