Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/244

 SONNET.

fades the sunlight from each lonely hill,
 * And the pale half-moon paints with shadowy hue
 * The sleeping earth; how soon doth night renew

Watch o'er a world—so passionless, so still! So free from all the turbulent thoughts that fill
 * And thrill the human soul, deep hid from view!
 * Oh! would that we poor, tired mortals, too,

Might seek and find repose. Ah! not until
 * We learn, through life, to know and understand
 * The million chords—struck by some unseen hand

On the responsive, yearning soul of man— Strange and conflicting since the world began;
 * Then all of beauty, truth, and love will find
 * Abiding echo in our heart and mind.

Ralph Renaude.