Sonnet

To-night the world is but a prison house, And kindly ways, and all the springing grass Are dungeon stones to him that may not pass Among them, save with anguish on his brows: And any wretched husbandman that ploughs The upland acres in his habit spare Is king, to those in palaces of glass Who sit with grief and weariness for spouse.

O God, who madest first the world that we Might happy live, and praise its pleasantness In such wise as the angels never could, Wherefore are hearts, fashioned so wondrously, All spoiled and changed by human bitterness Into the likenesses of stone and wood?