New Zealand Verse/Sonnet on Keats
CXXXIX.
Sonnet on Keats.
Now, while the air is sweet with breath of spring,
And loud with liquid melody and mirth;
When budding flowers burst into early birth,
And orchard trees are white with blossoming,
And on their snowy twigs the sweet birds sing;
When beauty is new-born o’er all the earth,
And with the last chill wind the fear of dearth,
And other piercing fears, have taken wing;
This is the season I would think of one—
The dear Endymion, the star-eyed youth—
Who loved the quickened earth as doth the sun,
Whose heart was full of courage and of ruth,
Whose voice in sweetest melodies would run;
And, lo, how Beauty was with him the Truth!
And loud with liquid melody and mirth;
When budding flowers burst into early birth,
And orchard trees are white with blossoming,
And on their snowy twigs the sweet birds sing;
When beauty is new-born o’er all the earth,
And with the last chill wind the fear of dearth,
And other piercing fears, have taken wing;
This is the season I would think of one—
The dear Endymion, the star-eyed youth—
Who loved the quickened earth as doth the sun,
Whose heart was full of courage and of ruth,
Whose voice in sweetest melodies would run;
And, lo, how Beauty was with him the Truth!
Ebenezer Storry Hay.