Sonnet V
Aghast, I look upon the steaming plain
Where Love doth stride, a ruthless fire-footed thing
To blacken bone in wash of flaming wing:
There, be neither shelter nor shield from pain
Seared flowers wither in its burning mane.
I turn my streaming face away, and cling
To lesser thing and stop my ears lest hear it sing
Its ringing gimlet cry to blight the sane
And set us trembling at its seeming rage
Or, ripping chin to stern in bleeding rite
It eats the flinching heart and strews but jumbled cage
Of ribs to rattle in its wrenching flight
And so consumes the wailing babe and blinded sage,
Till naught be left but ash and wholly joyous light.
~ Isabelle Rathbone Greene, c. 1894