Sonnet VII:

Alan Seeger

To me, a pilgrim on that journey bound

Whose stations Beauty’s bright examples are,

As of a silken city famed afar

Over the sands for wealth and holy ground,

Came the report of one — a woman crowned

With all perfection, blemishless and high,

As the full moon amid the moonlit sky,

With the world’s praise and wonder clad around.

And I who held this notion of success:

To leave no form of Nature’s loveliness

Unworshipped, if glad eyes have access there, —

Beyond all earthly bounds have made my goal

To find where that sweet shrine is and extol

The hand that triumphed in a work so fair.