Explore "Sonnets" by Helen Hay Whitney on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As one who looks too long upon the sun / When he must turn to earth from flame-shot skies / Sees all else dark through his bereaved eyes, / And yet may watch the rainbow ribbons run / Athwart the gravity of gray and dun, / He holds the darkness dearer for the prize / Wherein his only pledge of radiance lies / When he the vast magnificence must shun.
So we who play with rainbows, having seen / The sun's own face. We may not hold the west, / Which burns against the bosom of the night, / But in the after-glow, with eyes serene, / We still may find, dear heart, the sun's bequest, / An echoed glory of our passionate light.