[BNP/E3, 49A1 – 45]

Moonlight Sonnets

28/6/7

Silence! All sleeps! Upon the town’s[1] whole

A luck half-indistinct, Beauty doth swoon.

There is a quietness beneath the moon

Which enters, like a scent, into the soul.

_______

All is revealed at the sight

The revelation of the night doth roll

Upon me a slow sense of {…}

Ought[2] like a fairy death-bell in me a tune 

In a far fairly land doth {…} tell

Of numerous dreams departed

{…} with lights irregular and rare

But silent-silent as if death were there

{…} violence

The {…} all sleep! Silence!

_______

_____

Drinking Beauty unto pain

___________________________________

Here may the spirit tremulously think

A thought all feeling, like a quick dart

And in its thinking like a drainer sink

Now may we pass in life and wildly drink

With a sonnet

__________

Of both till its over-sense doth smart

And too-much love is bitter in[3] the heart.

[45v]

All thing by light are {…} and are seen

But light by itself Light of itself doth shine

Things that are {…} words but hide and screen

Beauty is beauty; if these not divine

By this what Beauty is, the last not |seen|

But even now cult see [for ‘til he as has been]

_______

_______

Say, what is Beauty? Is it colour, sound?

Is it the sense of motion with rest

Is it sleep, silence?

Is it the – pagan - † of a heart?

A song {…}

 
[1] town/city\’s
[2] Ought /And a deep\
[3] bitter in /heavy to\