Explore "The Sonnet" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Alone it stands in Poesy's fair land, / A temple by the muses set apart; / A perfect structure of consummate art, / By artists builded and by genius planned, / Beyond the reach of the apprentice hand, / Beyond the ken of the untutored heart, / Like a fine carving in a common mart, / Only the favoured few will understand. / A _chef-d'œvre_ toiled over with great care, / Yet which the unseeing careless crowd goes by, / A plainly set, but well-cut solitaire, / An ancient bit of pottery, too rare / To please or hold aught save the special eye, / These only with the sonnet can compare.