Sonnet II

Alan Seeger

Her courts are by the flux of flaming ways,

Between the rivers and the illumined sky

Whose fervid depths reverberate from on high

Fierce lustres mingled in a fiery haze.

They mark it inland; blithe and fair of face

Her suitors follow, guessing by the glare

Beyond the hilltops in the evening air

How bright the cressets at her portals blaze.

On the pure fronts Defeat ere many a day

Falls like the soot and dirt on city-snow;

There hopes deferred lie sunk in piteous seams.

Her paths are disillusion and decay,

With ruins piled and unapparent woe,

The graves of Beauty and the wreck of dreams.