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Home  »  American Sonnets  »  Lucia (White) Jennison (“Owen Innsley”) (1850– )

Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.

Titles

Lucia (White) Jennison (“Owen Innsley”) (1850– )

BORN sovereigns have no names but those bestowed

In baptism; Constance, Philip,—so each age

Knows them, and deals of praise or blame their wage,

As harvests of good fame or ill they sowed.

So with the mighty, o’er whose cradle glowed

The star of genius; with that heritage

Dante and Raphael shine on history’s page

Simple as when they walked our common road.

Like thy great namesake, in whose cause the plain

Of Troy was strewn with corpses, while above

Olympus heard the wrathful gods contend,

So, ’mid the homage of respect and love

Laid at thy feet by lover and by friend,

Helen thou art, and Helen must remain.