Puritan sonnet

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones

There's something in this richness that I hate.

I love the look, austere, immaculate,

Of landscapes dranvn in pearly monotones.

There's something in my very blood that owns

Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,

A thread of water, churned to milky spate

Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.

I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,

Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meager sheaves;

That spring, briefer than apple-blossom's breath;

Summer, so much too beautiful to stay;

Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves;

And sleepy winter, Eke the sleep of death.