| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | I. “I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap” | | By James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) |
| | | I ASK not for those thoughts, that sudden leap | |
| From being’s sea, like the isle-seeming kraken, | |
| With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken, | |
| And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep; | |
| Give me that growth, which some perchance deem sleep, | 5 |
| Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise, | |
| Which, by the toil of gathering energies, | |
| Their upward way into clear sunshine keep, | |
| Until, by Heaven’s sweetest influences, | |
| Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green | 10 |
| Into a pleasant island in the seas, | |
| Where, ’mid tall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen, | |
| And wearied men shall sit at sunset’s hour, | |
| Hearing the leaves, and loving God’s dear power. | | | | |
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