A late sonnet by the Dutch poet P.C. Boutens (1870-1943)

SONNET

The darkening tide of time has stripped us down –

Bared to the heart, the very soul, we stand

Truly inviolate, alone and grand,

Stark winter trees with rigid antler-crown...

The more our blossom blazed into the sky,

The deeper strove our roots through sand and earth:

For us who, free from care, face spring or death,

The wraithlike shadows of the world swirl by...

And still our first-known spring and all its dreaming

Holds charmed our quiet inner life with meaning...

And then infinity bursts into light...

Our eyes in exultation gain the timeless

Transcending vision of those blessed with blindness,

For whom, though earthbound, God came into sight.

First published in the periodical Helikon 1938, p.49; subsequently published in Boutens’ final collection Tusschenspelen (Interludes, 1942).