<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Sonnets</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">I</p><p class="line">I <span class="smallcaps">see</span> across the chasm of flying years</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The pyre of Dido on the vacant shore;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">I see Medea's fury and hear the roar</p><p class="line">Of rushing flames, the new bride's burning tears;</p><p class="line">And ever as still another vision peers</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Thro' memory's mist to stir me more and more,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">I say that surely I have lived before</p><p class="line">And known this joy and trembled with these fears.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The passion that they show me burns so high;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Their love, in me who have not looked on love,</p><p class="line">So fiercely flames; so wildly comes the cry</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Of stricken women the warrior's call above,</p><p class="line">That I would gladly lay me down and die</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">To wake again where Helen and Hector move.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">II</p><p class="line">The falling rain is music overhead,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The dark night, lit by no intruding star,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Fit covering yields to thoughts that roam afar</p><p class="line">And turn again familiar paths to tread,</p><p class="line">Where many a laden hour too quickly sped</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In happier times, before the dawn of war,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Before the spoiler had whet his sword to mar</p><p class="line">The faithful living and the mighty dead.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">It is not that my soul is weighed with woe,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But rather wonder, seeing they do but sleep.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">As birds that in the sinking summer sweep</p><p class="line">Across the heaven to happier climes to go,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">So they are gone; and sometimes we must weep,</p><p class="line">And sometimes, smiling, murmur, "Be it so!"</p></div><p class="byline">Henry William Hutchinson</p></body></html> · Great War