| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | What the Sonnet Is | | By Eugene Lee-Hamilton (1845–1907) |
| | | FOURTEEN small broider’d berries on the hem | |
| Of Circe’s mantle, each of magic gold; | |
| Fourteen of lone Calypso’s tears that roll’d | |
| Into the sea, for pearls to come to them; | |
| Fourteen clear signs of omen in the gem | 5 |
| With which Medea human fate foretold; | |
| Fourteen small drops, which Faustus, growing old, | |
| Craved of the Fiend, to water Life’s dry stem. | |
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| It is the pure white diamond Dante brought | |
| To Beatrice; the sapphire Laura wore | 10 |
| When Petrarch cut it sparkling out of thought; | |
| The ruby Shakespeare hew’d from his heart’s core; | |
| The dark deep emerald that Rossetti wrought | |
| For his own soul, to wear for evermore. | | | | |
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