The Sublime
The Sublime
Original Text
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, "The Love Sonnets of Proteus," "Part IV. -- Vita Nova," CVI, Poems (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923): 92. PR 4149 B8A17
1To stand upon a windy pinnacle,
2Beneath the infinite blue of the blue noon,
3And underfoot a valley terrible
4As that dim gulf, where sense and being swoon
5When the soul parts; a giant valley strewn
6With giant rocks; asleep, and vast, and still,
7And far away. The torrent, which has hewn
8His pathway through the entrails of the hill,
9Now crawls along the bottom and anon
10Lifts up his voice, a muffled tremulous roar,
11Borne on the wind an instant, and then gone
12Back to the caverns of the middle air;
13A voice as of a nation overthrown
14With beat of drums, when hosts have marched to war.
Publication Start Year
1881
Publication Notes
The Love Songs of Proteus (London: Kegan Paul, 1881): 113. PR 4149 B8L6 1881 Robarts Library
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2005
Rhyme
Form