SONNET: THE HYACINTH by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

HERE in this wrecked storm-wasted garden-close
The grave of infinite generations fled
Of flowers that now lay lustreless and dead,
As the gray dust of Eden's earliest rose.
What bloom is this, whose classical beauty glows
Radiantly chaste, with the mild splendor shed
Round a Greek virgin's poised and perfect head,
By Phidias wrought 'twixt rapture and repose?
Mark the sweet lines whose matchless ovals curl
Above the fragile stem's half shrinking grace,
And say if this pure hyacinth doth not seem
(Touched by enchantments of an antique dream)
A flower no more, but the low drooping face
Of some love-laden, fair Athenian girl?

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