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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  The Sonnet

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Sentiment: IV. Thought: Poetry: Books

The Sonnet

Richard Watson Gilder (1844–1909)

WHAT is a sonnet? ’T is the pearly shell

That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea;

A precious jewel carved most curiously;

It is a little picture painted well.

What is a sonnet? ’T is the tear that fell

From a great poet’s hidden ecstasy;

A two-edged sword, a star, a song,—ah me!

Sometimes a heavy-tolling funeral bell.

This was the flame that shook with Dante’s breath,

The solemn organ whereon Milton played,

And the clear glass where Shakespeare’s shadow falls:

A sea this is,—beware who ventureth!

For like a fiord the narrow floor is laid

Mid-ocean deep to the sheer mountain walls.