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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341930" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Aholibah</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">IN the beginning God made thee<br>A woman well to look upon,<br>Thy tender body as a tree<br>Whereon cool wind hath always blown<br>Till the clean branches be well grown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was none like thee in the land;<br>The girls that were thy bondwomen<br>Did bind thee with a purple band<br>Upon thy forehead, that all men<br>Should know thee for God’s handmaiden.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Strange raiment clad thee like a bride,<br>With silk to wear on hands and feet<br>And plates of gold on either side:<br>Wine made thee glad, and thou didst eat<br>Honey, and choice of pleasant meat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And fishers in the middle sea<br>Did get thee sea-fish and sea-weeds<br>In colour like the robes on thee;<br>And curious work of plaited reeds,<br>And wools wherein live purple bleeds.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And round the edges of thy cup<br>Men wrought thee marvels out of gold,<br>Strong snakes with lean throats lifted up,<br>Large eyes whereon the brows had hold,<br>And scaly things their slime kept cold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For thee they blew soft wind in flutes<br>And ground sweet roots for cunning scent;<br>Made slow because of many lutes,<br>The wind among thy chambers went<br>Wherein no light was violent.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">God called thy name Aholibah,<br>His tabernacle being in thee,<br>A witness through waste Asia;<br>Thou wert a tent sewn cunningly<br>With gold and colours of the sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">God gave thee gracious ministers<br>And all their work who plait and weave:<br>The cunning of embroiderers<br>That sew the pillow to the sleeve,<br>And likeness of all things that live.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thy garments upon thee were fair<br>With scarlet and with yellow thread;<br>Also the weaving of thine hair<br>Was as fine gold upon thy head,<br>And thy silk shoes were sewn with red.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All sweet things he bade sift, and ground<br>As a man grindeth wheat in mills<br>With strong wheels alway going round;<br>He gave thee corn, and grass that fills<br>The cattle on a thousand hills.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The wine of many seasons fed<br>Thy mouth, and made it fair and clean;<br>Sweet oil was poured out on thy head<br>And ran down like cool rain between<br>The strait close locks it melted in.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The strong men and the captains knew<br>Thy chambers wrought and fashioned<br>With gold and covering of blue,<br>And the blue raiment of thine head<br>Who satest on a stately bed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All these had on their garments wrought<br>The shape of beasts and creeping things,<br>The body that availeth not,<br>Flat backs of worms and veinèd wings,<br>And the lewd bulk that sleeps and stings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Also the chosen of the years,<br>The multitude being at ease,<br>With sackbuts and with dulcimers<br>And noise of shawms and psalteries<br>Made mirth within the ears of these.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But as a common woman doth,<br>Thou didst think evil and devise;<br>The sweet smell of thy breast and mouth<br>Thou madest as the harlot’s wise,<br>And there was painting on thine eyes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, in the woven guest-chamber<br>And by the painted passages<br>Where the strange gracious paintings were,<br>State upon state of companies,<br>There came on thee the lust of these.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Because of shapes on either wall<br>Sea-coloured from some rare blue shell<br>At many a Tyrian interval,<br>Horsemen on horses, girdled well,<br>Delicate and desirable,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thou saidest: I am sick of love:<br>Stay me with flagons, comfort me<br>With apples for my pain thereof<br>Till my hands gather in his tree<br>That fruit wherein my lips would be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, saidest thou, I will go up<br>When there is no more shade than one<br>May cover with a hollow cup,<br>And make my bed against the sun<br>Till my blood’s violence be done.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thy mouth was leant upon the wall<br>Against the painted mouth, thy chin<br>Touched the hair’s painted curve and fall;<br>Thy deep throat, fallen lax and thin,<br>Worked as the blood’s beat worked therein.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Therefore, O thou Aholibah,<br>God is not glad because of thee;<br>And thy fine gold shall pass away<br>Like those fair coins of ore that be<br>Washed over by the middle sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then will one make thy body bare<br>To strip it of all gracious things,<br>And pluck the cover from thine hair,<br>And break the gift of many kings,<br>Thy wrist-rings and thine ankle-rings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Likewise the man whose body joins<br>To thy smooth body, as was said,<br>Who hath a girdle on his loins<br>And dyed attire upon his head—<br>The same who, seeing, worshipped,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Because thy face was like the face<br>Of a clean maiden that smells sweet,<br>Because thy gait was as the pace<br>Of one that opens not her feet<br>And is not heard within the street—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Even he, O thou Aholibah,<br>Made separate from thy desire,<br>Shall cut thy nose and ears away<br>And bruise thee for thy body’s hire<br>And burn the residue with fire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then shall the heathen people say,<br>The multitude being at ease;<br>Lo, this is that Aholibah<br>Whose name was blown among strange seas,<br>Grown old with soft adulteries.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Also her bed was made of green,<br>Her windows beautiful for glass<br>That she had made her bed between:<br>Yea, for pure lust her body was<br>Made like white summer-coloured grass.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her raiment was a strong man’s spoil;<br>Upon a table by a bed<br>She set mine incense and mine oil<br>To be the beauty of her head<br>In chambers walled about with red.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Also between the walls she had<br>Fair faces of strong men portrayed;<br>All girded round the loins, and clad<br>With several cloths of woven braid<br>And garments marvellously made.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Therefore the wrath of God shall be<br>Set as a watch upon her way;<br>And whoso findeth by the sea<br>Blown dust of bones will hardly say<br>If this were that Aholibah.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Algernon+Charles+Swinburne">Algernon Charles Swinburne</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341930" data-title="Aholibah de Algernon Charles Swinburne" data-description="IN the beginning God made thee
A woman well to look upon,
Thy tender body as a tree
Whereon cool wind hath always blown
Till the clean branches be well grown.

There was none like thee in the land;
The girls that were thy bondwomen
Did bind thee w..."></div>
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