A Sonnet on Cervantes

In all my days of troubled loneliness
And fretted grief Cervantes is to me
A faithful friend, and none so true as he,
That brings me precious gifts of quietness.

All nature his, and life. Of his largesse
My dreams, that are knight-errants bold and free,
Have golden casques to crown them gloriously.
He is, for me: sigh, prayer, joyousness.

He speaks as runs a brook, so amorous
And very gentle is this Christian knight,
Even undaunted. And I love him thus,

Beholding how the world, by fate's design,
Reaps, from his deathless sorrow, rich delight,
And laughter from a madness so divine!