Now do I know that Love is blind, for I
Can see no beauty on this beauteous earth,
No life, no light, no hopefulness, no mirth,
Pleasure nor purpose, when thou art not nigh.
Thy absence exiles sunshine from the sky,
Seres Spring’s maturity, checks Summer’s birth,
Leaves linnet’s pipe as sad as plover’s cry,
And makes me in abundance find but dearth.
But when thy feet flutter the dark, and thou
With orient eyes dawnest on my distress,
Suddenly sings a bird on every bough,
The heavens expand, the earth grows less and less,
The ground is buoyant as the ether now,
And all looks lovely in thy loveliness.
The influence of Shakspeare is altogether too apparent in this, and it
has as many faults as merits; but it is admirable work, nevertheless.
To a poet only come such conceptions as “orient eyes” and feet that
“flutter the dark.”
Here is another sonnet in which the thought, quite as natural, is less
obvious. In some of his best work Mr. Austin runs rather to love (a
great fault, madam) and this is called