Sonnet CLXXXII:
It seems to mock me: all this heat and bloom,
And the shrill paeans of the laureate bird;
As though the year God’s waking mandate heard,
And came, like Lazarus, from the torpid tomb.
Strange as the first creation from the womb
Of eldest chaos was the life that stirred
Today through nature, as the primal Word
Moved o’er the void, with light supplanting gloom.
Only to me comes no creative light
Out of the orient, and my sullen tears
Flow through the starless darkness of my fears.
O God, develop something in my sight
Grant me at least the changes of the years,
To checker, here and there, this inner night
