Poem by Alan Seeger

Thirty Sonnets. 8. Sonnet 8. Oft as by chance, a little while apart

Oft as by chance, a little while apart
The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn,
Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart,
Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn:
Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe
Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus,
Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw
Seem a new heaven and earth so marvelous;
But, clad thenceforth in iridescent dyes,
The fair world glistens, and in after days
The memory of kind lips and laughing eyes
Lives in my step and lightens all my face, --
So they who found the Earthly Paradise
Still breathed, returned, of that sweet, joyful place.

1. Tithonus
2. Thirty Sonnets. 30. At the Tomb of Napoleon before the Elections in America--November, 1912
3. Sonnet 9. Well, seeing I have no hope, then let us part
4. Thirty Sonnets. 22. With a Copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets on Leaving College
5. All That's Not Love...

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