Sonnet XXIX

A poem

The Sense of Sight (Annie Louisa Swynnerton, 1895)

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It is a moment, hidden in days like this,
hemmed in behind by doubt and after, bliss,
that lightens just a whit the load. A kiss
of peace and all is sense, and five are one.
You look around like one who’s just begun
to see. You feel like you could pluck the sun
and taste its burning sweetness, carve the sea
with all its dark and foam-flecked marble, breathe
the colour green, converse with birds, believe
they might just understand the way they stare
with an ever-knowing wisdom that lays bare
your ill constructed fortresses of care.
      When it is gone, as go it must, it leaves
      a hunger that this world cannot appease.

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