[BNP/E3, 77 – 71]

Sonnet.

Could I say what I think, could I express

My every hidden and too-silent thought,

And bring my feelings, in perfection wrought,

To one unforced point of living stress;

Could I breathe forth my soul, could I confess

The inmost secrets to my nature brought,

I might be great; yet none to me hath taught,

A language well to figure my distress.

Yet day and night to me new whispers bring,

And night and day from me old whispers take…

Oh for a word, one phrase in which to fling

All that I think or feel and so to wake

The world, but I am dumb and cannot sing,

Dumb as you clouds before the thunders break.

Alexander Search.

1904.