Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.
CrownsEdgar Fawcett (18471904)
I
I seemed to attain that realm where mortals throw
All gross mortality earthward ere they go
Forth as frail spirits amid death’s hollow deep.
All folly and sin was here that life may reap,
All desperate fear and hope, all joy or woe;
And here all precious crowns the exalted know,
Lay gathered in superb tumultuous heap!
Their ponderous gold, or gems that beamed like day,
Or lovelier laurel that grand brows had worn;
But hid below the beauty of each, I saw
Continually, in grim recurrent way,
The poignance of one small red-rusted thorn!