Portraits in the Sonnet Form

ELINOR WYLIE

I

MERCUTIO, my hand has never used That fluency of color, smooth and rich, Could cage you in enamel for the niche Whose heart-shape holds you; I have been accused Of gold and silver trickery, infused With blood of meteors, and moonstones, which Are cold as eyeballs in a flooded ditch; In no such goblin smithy are you bruised.

I do not glaze a lantern like a shell, Inset with stars, nor make you visible Through jeweled arabesques which adhere to clothe The outlines of your soul; I am content To leave you an uncaptured element— Water, or light; or air that's stained by both.

II

HIS father's steel, piercing the wholesome fruit Of his mother's flesh, wrought acidly to mar Its own Damascus, staining worse than war A purity intense and absolute; While her clean stock put forth a poisoned shoot. In likeness of a twisted scimitar; Sleek as a love-lock, ugly as a scar, Wrong as the first-born of a mandrake root.

There was a waning moon upon his brow, A fallen star upon his pointed chin; He mingled Ariel with Caliban; Rut such a blossom upon such a bough Convinced his poor progenitors of sin In having made a something more than man.