Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.
I. I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leapJames Russell Lowell (18191891)
I
From being’s sea, like the isle-seeming kraken,
With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken,
And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep;
Give me that growth, which some perchance deem sleep,
Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise,
Which, by the toil of gathering energies,
Their upward way into clear sunshine keep,
Until, by Heaven’s sweetest influences,
Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green
Into a pleasant island in the seas,
Where, ’mid tall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen,
And wearied men shall sit at sunset’s hour,
Hearing the leaves, and loving God’s dear power.