Sonnet XIV
It may be for the world of weeds and taresAnd dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty’s roseThat oft as Fortune from ten thousand showsOne from the train of Love’s true courtiersStraightway on him who gazes, unawares,Deep wonder seizes and swift trembling grows,Reft by that sight of purpose and repose,Hardly its weight his fainting breast upbears.Then on the soul from some ancestral placeFloods back remembrance of its heavenly birth,When, in the light of that serener sphere,It saw ideal beauty face to faceThat through the forms of this our meaner EarthShines with a beam less steadfast and less clear.