George Henry Boker (1823-1890). III. The Awaking of the Poetic Faculty. Hunt and Lee, comps. 1867. The Book of the Sonnet

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

III. The Awaking of the Poetic Faculty

By George Henry Boker (1823–1890)


ALL day I heard a humming in my ears,
A buzz of many voices, and a throng
Of swarming numbers, passing with a song
Measured and stately as the rolling spheres’.
I saw the sudden light of lifted spears,	5
Slanted at once against some monster wrong;
And then a fluttering scarf which might belong
To some sweet maiden in her morn of years.
I felt the chilling damp of sunless glades,
Horrid with gloom; anon, the breath of May	10
Was blown around me, and the lulling play
Of dripping fountains. Yet the lights and shades,
The waving scarfs, the battle’s grand parades
Seemed but vague shadows of that wondrous lay.