Sonnet
No more, O Muses, is potter’s deft hand ledBy yours upon the clay, nor as of oldHears the poet at dusk your songs of gold,Nor any new song worthy of their stead.Why, O nine, this silence? Are you fled?Or spake they true, those gloaters who have told(Grinning to see our poor hearts unconsoled),‘Muses? Outmoded thought. Such things are dead.’Nay, lives still the Queen of Song, and all her sisters.We it is who deafened are, and mute,Who have unpicked our finest dreams, untuned our ear,Denuded beauty’s bud, upturned the root.Reader, if in her sweet, Archaic whispers,Softly she spake to thee – couldst thou hear?