Connor's English Page

Puritan Sonnet

Elinor Wylie

Down to the Puritan Marrow of my bones

There's something in this richness that I hate.

I love the look, austere, immaculate,

Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.

There's something in my very blood that owns

Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,

A thread of water, churned to milky spate¹

^{Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.}

 

^{I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,}

^{Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meager sheaves;}

^{That spring, briefer than apple blossom's breath,}

^{Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,}

^{Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,}

^{And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.}