Sonnet

YOU silvered through an ogre-eerie wood,
Observed a blossom shudder from a tree,
Interpreted a leaf, and understood
The laurel-metamorphosis of me;
And touched the husk of my captivity
With vivid fingers, quickening as rain. . . .
I felt a sudden, fluid agony —
Mortality — invade me, vein by vein.

So long the eloquence of flesh has lain
Within the narrow jacket of the bough;
The hand, the lips, but charily attain
The flaring heart’s expression, even now.
And loving is a cautious subtlety
For Daphne, newly from the laurel free.

VIRGINIA FRENCH