The Sonnet Poem by Sheehan Patrick Augustine

I put my trembling bird with down-drooped wing
Within a golden cage that hung before
The Muse's temple; closed the clanging door,
And stept aside, silent and wondering
Whether the captive minstrel soul would sing,
She whose aspiring fancy fain would soar
To the far Pisgah heights whose altars bore
Traces of the lordliest poets' ministerings.

And, lo! the rough-hewn prison bars did glow
Into a golden lyre serenely strung,
And o'ere their quivering chords did sweetly flow
The wavelets of an echo, swiftly sprung
From the imprisoned rage, the frenzied glow,
For here hath Milton, here hath Petrarch sung.