On his “Sonnets of the Wingless Hours”

Eugene Lee-Hamilton (1845–1907)

I WROUGHT them like a targe of hammered gold

On which all Troy is battling round and round;

Or Circe’s cup, embossed with snakes that wound

Through buds and myrtles, fold on scaly fold;

Or like gold coins, which Lydian tombs may hold

Stamped with winged racers, in the old red ground;

Or twined gold armlets from the funeral mound

Of some great viking, terrible of old.

I know not in what metal I have wrought;

Nor whether what I fashioned will be thrust

Beneath the clouds that hide forgotten thought;

But if it is of gold it will not rust;

And when the time is ripe it will be brought

Into the sun, and glitter through its dust.