En.Citatepedia^®.ro

The Necessitarian

I know not in Whose hands are laid
To empty upon earth
From unsuspected ambuscade
The very Urns of Mirth;

Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
And cheer our solemn round--
The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
And grovellings on the ground;

Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
Behind the prey preferred,
And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
The Sacredly Absurd,

Till Laughter, voiceless through excess,
Waves mute appeal and sore,
Above the midriff's deep distress,
For breath to laugh once more.

No creed hath dared to hail Him Lord,
No raptured choirs proclaim,
And Nature's strenuous Overword
Hath nowhere breathed His Name.

Yet, it must be, on wayside jape,
The selfsame Power bestows
The selfsame power as went to shape
His Planet or His Rose.

poem by Rudyard Kipling
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The Pentagram

[Dedicated to George Raffalovich]

In the Years of the Primal Course, in the dawn of terrestrial
birth,
Man mastered the mammoth and horse, and Man was the
Lord of the Earth.

He made him an hollow skin from the heart of an holy tree,
He compassed the earth therien, and Man was the Lord of
the Sea.

He controlled the vigour of steam, he harnessed the light-
ning for hire;
He drove the celestial team, and man was the Lord of the
Fire.

Deep-mouthed from their thrones deep-seated, the choirs
of the æeons declare
The last of the demons defeated, for Man is the Lord of
the Air.

Arise, O Man, in thy strength! the kingdom is thine to
inherit,
Till the high gods witness at lenght that Man is the Lord
of his spirit.

poem by Aleister Crowley
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Risus Dei

Methinks in Him there dwells alway
A sea of laughter very deep,
Where the leviathans leap,
And little children play,
Their white feet twinkling on its crisped edge;
But in the outer bay
The strong man drives the wedge
Of polished limbs,
And swims.
Yet there is one will say:--
'It is but shallow, neither is it broad'--
And so he frowns; but is he nearer God?

One saith that God is in the note of bird,
And piping wind, and brook,
And all the joyful things that speak no word:
Then if from sunny nook
Or shade a fair child's laugh
Is heard,
Is not God half?
And if a strong man gird
His loins for laughter, stirred
By trick of ape or calf--
Is he no better than a cawing rook?

Nay 'tis a Godlike function; laugh thy fill!
Mirth comes to thee unsought;
Mirth sweeps before it like a flood the mill
Of languaged logic; thought
Hath not its source so high;
The will
Must let it by:
For though the heavens are still,
God sits upon His hill,
And sees the shadows fly;
And if He laughs at fools, why should He not?

'Yet hath a fool a laugh'--Yea, of a sort;
God careth for the fools;
The chemic tools
Of laughter He hath given them, and some toys
Of sense, as 'twere a small retort
Wherein they may collect the joys
Of natural giggling, as becomes their state:
The fool is not inhuman, making sport
For such as would not gladly be without
That old familiar noise:
Since, though he laugh not, he can cachinnate--
This also is of God, we may not doubt.
'Is there an empty laugh?' Best called a shell
From which a laugh has flown,
A mask, a well
That hath no water of its own,
Part echo of a groan,
Which, if it hide a cheat,
Is a base counterfeit;
But if one borrow
A cloak to wrap a sorrow
That it may pass unknown,
Then can it not be empty. God doth dwell
Behind the feigned gladness,
Inhabiting a sacred core of sadness.

'Yet is there not an evil laugh?' Content--
What follows?
When Satan fills the hollows
Of his bolt-riven heart
With spasms of unrest,
And calls it laughter; if it give relief
To his great grief,
Grudge not the dreadful jest.
But if the laugh be aimed
At any good thing that it be ashamed,
And blush thereafter,
Then it is evil, and it is not laughter.

There are who laugh, but know not why:
Whether the force
Of simple health and vigour seek a course
Extravagant, as when a wave runs high,
And tips with crest of foam the incontinent curve,
Or if it be reserve
Of power collected for a goal, which had,
Behold! the man is fresh. So when strung nerve,
Stout heart, pent breath, have brought you to the source
Of a great river, on the topmost stie
Of cliff, then have you bad
All heaven to laugh with you; yet somewhere nigh
A shepherd lad
Has wondering looked, and deemed that you were mad.

poem by Thomas Edward Brown
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The Power In My Hand

Let the bold get bolder
The weak, weaker
The poor, poorer
And the world bigger
But the powerful shall exceed the earth
And the powerful shall stretch his hands wide
Across the face of the earth
Then the powerful shall be more powerful
The power in my hand, I limit
The power to rebuild the earth
The power to speak to other powers
The power to fall in love
The power to seal volcanoes
To trouble storms
To do the undone
And undo the done
The power to gather knowledge
And solve world mysteries
To reach to the needy
And build better lives
But all these I have neglected
And all the miracles die with me
Can I sit any longer?
And more perish still?
For my sake
But that power could leave me
For someone else
For the misuse of such gifts
Immortality is not an issue
One must die
But shall I die unaccomplished?
With the seed of power
In my hands
Who shall attend my burial?
Apart from the unaccomplished
But my chance to use my power has come
Most people blame Eve
Others Adam
For misused power
Had they not heard they are misusing theirs?
Are they not ashamed?
For nature is fair
And ones chance is too
There is lots of power in my hands to harness
But there isn't lots of time to utilize
So how can I sit with you and watch…
…the power in my hands waste away

poem by Ivan Chizurum Ezeigbo
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Merry Autumn

IT's all a farce, — these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o'er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
Such principles are most absurd, —
I care not who first taught 'em;
There's nothing known to beast or bird
To make a solemn autumn.
In solemn times, when grief holds sway
With countenance distressing,
You'll note the more of black and gray
Will then be used in dressing.
Now purple tints are all around;
The sky is blue and mellow;
And e'en the grasses turn the ground
From modest green to yellow.
The seed burrs all with laughter crack
On featherweed and jimson;
And leaves that should be dressed in black
Are all decked out in crimson.
A butterfly goes winging by;
A singing bird comes after;
And Nature, all from earth to sky,
Is bubbling o'er with laughter.
The ripples wimple on the rills,
Like sparkling little lasses;
The sunlight runs along the hills,
And laughs among the grasses.
The earth is just so full of fun
It really can't contain it;
And streams of mirth so freely run
The heavens seem to rain it.
Don't talk to me of solemn days
In autumn's time of splendor,
Because the sun shows fewer rays,
And these grow slant and slender.
Why, it's the climax of the year,—
The highest time of living!—
Till naturally its bursting cheer
Just melts into thanksgiving.

poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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The Wandering Bard

What life like that of the bard can be --
The wandering bard, who roams as free
As the mountain lark that o'er him sings,
And, like that lark a music brings,
Within him, where'er he comes or goes --
A fount that for ever flows!
The world's to him like some playground,
Where fairies dance their moonlight round; --
It dimm'd the turf where late they trod;
The elves but seek some greener sod;
So, when less bright his scene of glee,
To another away flies he!

Oh, what would have been young Beauty's doom
Without a bard to fix her bloom?
They tell us, in the moon's bright round,
Things lost in this dark world are found;
So charms, on earth long pass'd and gone,
In the poet's lay live on. --
Would you have smiles that ne'er grow dim?
You've only to give them all to him,
Who, with but a touch of Fancy's wand,
Can lend them life, this life beyond.
And fix them high, in Poesy's sky --
Young stars that never die!

Then welcome the bard where'er he comes,
For, though he hath countless airy homes,
To which his wing excursive roves,
Yet still, from time to time, he loves
To light upon earth and find such cheer
As brightens our banquet here.
No matter how far, how fleet he flies,
You've only to light up kind young eyes,
Such signal-fires as here are given--
And down he'll drop from Fancy's heaven,
The minute such call to love or mirth
Proclaim's he's wanting on the earth!

poem by Thomas Moore
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The Nursing Sister

Maternity Hospital

Our sister sayeth such and such,
And we must bow to her behests.
Our sister toileth overmuch,
Our little maid that hath no breasts.

A field untilled, a web unwove,
A flower withheld from sun or bee,
An alien in the Courts of Love,
And--teacher unto such as we!

We love her, but we laugh the while,
We laugh, but sobs are mixed with laughter;
Our sister hath no time to smile,
She knows not what must follow after.

Wind of the South, arise and blow,
From beds of spice thy locks shake free;
Breathe on her heart that she may know,
Breathe on her eyes that she may see!

Alas! we vex her with our mirth,
And maze her with most tender scorn,
Who stands beside the Gates of Birth,
Herself a child--a child unborn!

Our sister sayeth such and such,
And we must bow to her behests.
Our sister toileth overmuch,
Our little maid that hath no breasts.

poem by Rudyard Kipling
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Psalm 116 part 1

Recovery from sickness.

I love the Lord; he heard my cries,
And pitied every groan;
Long as I live, when troubles rise,
I'll hasten to his throne.

I love the Lord; he bowed his ear,
And chased my griefs away;
O let my heart no more despair,
While I have breath to pray!

My flesh declined, my spirits fell,
And I drew near the dead;
While inward pangs and fears of hell
Perplexed my wakeful head.

"My God," I cried, "thy servant save,
"Thou ever good and just;
Thy power can rescue from the grave,
Thy power is all my trust."

The Lord beheld me sore distressed,
He bid my pains remove
Return, my soul, to God thy rest,
For thou hast known his love.

My God hath saved my soul from death,
And dried my falling tears;
Now to his praise I'll spend my breath,
And my remaining years.

poem by Isaac Watts
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Holy Sonnet VII: At The Round Earth's Imagined Corners Blow

At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall, overthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if Thou'dst sealed my pardon, with Thy blood.

poem by John Donne
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O Silver Rose

THE dark hour turns so slowly and so sweet,
The last still hour soft-fallen from the stars.
To-morrow I may kneel and touch thy feet,
O Rose of all Shiraz.

Lay wide thine amorous lattice to the south,
O Silver Rose, when roses breathe thy name,
And thou at dawn shalt feel upon thy mouth
The kiss I dared not claim.

Discrowned, dishonoured, reft of pride and power,
From the red battle where they hailed me lord,
O Silver Rose, O sweet Pomegranate Flower,
I turn me to their sword.

Life hath so held me to an empty part,
Life hath so snared me, bound and made me blind.
To-morrow I may rest upon thy heart,
For death shall prove more kind.

poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Laughter And Death

THERE is no laughter in the natural world
Of beast or fish or bird, though no sad doubt
Of their futurity to them unfurled
Has dared to check the mirth-compelling shout.
The lion roars his solemn thunder out
To the sleeping woods. The eagle screams her cry.
Even the lark must strain a serious throat
To hurl his blest defiance at the sky.
Fear, anger, jealousy, have found a voice.
Love’s pain or rapture the brute bosoms swell.
Nature has symbols for her nobler joys,
Her nobler sorrows. Who had dared foretell
That only man, by some sad mockery,
Should learn to laugh who learns that he must die?

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Holy Sonnet 7

At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go;
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent, for that's as good
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.

poem by John Donne from Holy Sonnets
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Reciprocal Kindness The Primary Law Of Nature

Androcles, from his injured lord, in dread
Of instant death, to Lybia's desert fled,
Tired with his toilsome flight, and parch'd with heat,
He spied at length a cavern's cool retreat;
But scarce had given to rest his weary frame,
When, hugest of his kind, a lion came:
He roar'd approaching: but the savage din
To plaintive murmurs changed -- arrived within,
And with expressive looks, his lifted paw
Presenting, and implored from whom he saw.
The fugitive, through terror at a stand,
Dared not awhile afford his trembling hand;
But bolder grown, at length inherent found
A pointed thorn, and drew it from the wound.
The cure was wrought; he wiped the sanious blood,
And firm and free from pain the lion stood.
Again he seeks the wilds, and day by day
Regales his inmate with the parted prey.
Nor he disdains the dole, though unprepared,
Spread on the ground, and with a lion shared.
But thus to live -- still lost -- sequester'd still --
Scarce seem'd his lord's revenge a heavier ill.
Home! native home! O might he but repair!
He must -- he will, though death attends him there.
He goes, and, doom'd to perish, on the sands
Of the full theatre unpitied stands:
When lo! the selfsame lion from his cage
Flies to devour him, famish'd into rage.
He flies, but viewing in his purposed prey
The man, his healer, pauses on his way,
And, soften'd by remembrance into sweet
And kind composure, crouches at his feet.
Mute with astonishment, the assembly gaze:
But why, ye Romans? Whence your mute amaze?
All this is natural: nature bade him rend
An enemy: she bids him spare a friend.

poem by William Cowper
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Look Now On That Adventurer Who Hath Paid

LOOK now on that Adventurer who hath paid
His vows to Fortune; who, in cruel slight
Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right,
Hath followed wheresoe'er a way was made
By the blind Goddess,--ruthless, undismayed;
And so hath gained at length a prosperous height,
Round which the elements of worldly might
Beneath his haughty feet, like clouds, are laid.
O joyless power that stands by lawless force!
Curses are 'his' dire portion, scorn, and hate,
Internal darkness and unquiet breath;
And, if old judgments keep their sacred course,
Him from that height shall Heaven precipitate
By violent and ignominious death.

poem by William Wordsworth
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Lamentations of Jeremiah II: Zion's Sorrows Come from the LORD

1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob,
and hath not pitied:
he hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
he hath brought them down to the ground:
he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy:
he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion:
he poured out his fury like fire.

5 The Lord was as an enemy:
he hath swallowed up Israel,
he hath swallowed up all her palaces:
he hath destroyed his strongholds,
and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden;
he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

7 The Lord hath cast off his altar,
he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
they have made a noise in the house of the LORD,
as in the day of a solemn feast.

8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy
the wall of the daughter of Zion:
he hath stretched out a line,
he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament;
they languished together.

9 Her gates are sunk into the ground;
he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
her king and her princes are among the Gentiles:
the law is no more;
her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.

10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
they have cast up dust upon their heads;
they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

11 Mine eyes do fail with tears,
my bowels are troubled,
my liver is poured upon the earth,
for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.

13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee?
What thing shall I liken to thee,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea:
who can heal thee?

14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.

15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
they hiss and gnash the teeth:
they say, We have swallowed her up:
certainly this is the day that we looked for;
we have found, we have seen it.

17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised;
he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied:
and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion,
let tears run down like a river day and night:
give thyself no rest;
let not the apple of thine eye cease.

19 Arise, cry out in the night:
in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger;
thou hast killed, and not pitied.

22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
so that in the day of the LORD's anger none escaped nor remained:
those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

poem by Prophet Jeremiah
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: LXXXIX

THE LIMIT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
There is a vice in the world's reasoning. Man
Has conquered knowledge. He has conquered power;
He has traced out the universal plan
Of the Earth's being; and in this last hour
He has unmade the God which he had made.
I cannot doubt but he at length has read
The riddle of the Earth; that he is wise.
He also hath dominion charterèd
Over the lands, the oceans, and the skies,
Which toil and sweat to give him daily bread.
--Knowledge he hath, and power upon the Earth,
And long ago he had himself been God,
But for the cruel secret of his birth,
Which gave him kindred with the dust he trod,
And for the hideous ending of his mirth,
A fly--blown carrion festering 'neath the sod.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Ocean

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

~ Psalm cvii. 23, 24.

HE that in venturous barks hath been
A wanderer on the deep,
Can tell of many an awful scene,
Where storms for ever sweep.

For many a fair, majestic sight
Hath met his wandering eye,
Beneath the streaming northern light,
Or blaze of Indian sky.

Go! ask him of the whirlpool's roar,
Whose echoing thunder peals
Loud, as if rushed along the shore
An army's chariot wheels;

Of icebergs, floating o'er the main,
Or fixed upon the coast,
Like glittering citadel or fane,
'Mid the bright realms of frost;

Of coral rocks, from waves below
In steep ascent that tower,
And fraught with peril, daily grow,
Formed by an insect's power;

Of sea-fires, which at dead of night
Shine o'er the tides afar,
And make th' expanse of ocean bright
As heaven, with many a star.

Oh God! thy name they well may praise,
Who to the deep go down,
And trace the wonders of thy ways,
Where rocks and billows frown.

If glorious be that awful deep,
No human power can bind,
What then art Thou, who bidst it keep
Within its bounds confined!

Let heaven and earth in praise unite,
Eternal praise to Thee,
Whose word can rouse the tempest's might,
Or still the raging sea!

poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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The Sirens' Song

STEER, hither steer your winged pines,
All beaten mariners!
Here lie Love's undiscover'd mines,
A prey to passengers--
Perfumes far sweeter than the best
Which make the Phoenix' urn and nest.
Fear not your ships,
Nor any to oppose you save our lips;
But come on shore,
Where no joy dies till Love hath gotten more.

For swelling waves our panting breasts,
Where never storms arise,
Exchange, and be awhile our guests:
For stars gaze on our eyes.
The compass Love shall hourly sing,
And as he goes about the ring,
We will not miss
To tell each point he nameth with a kiss.
--Then come on shore,
Where no joy dies till Love hath gotten more.

poem by William Browne
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Life in a Love

Escape me ?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,—
So the chace takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your furthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me—
Ever
Removed!

poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Master

In sea and air, in leaf and stone,
Where’er Truth’s magic words are writ,
Where thousands throng, or rapt and lone,
Life was his book. He pondered it.
Through page of earth and sun and star
He heard the swift sweep of the Song
Of Law and Motion, streaming far,
Which seemed to sing, “The world is wrong.”
Men passed him by. They brushed aside
The dreamer in his dreams of law.
They laughed and left him, open-eyed,
Fixed on the point that no man saw.
“Life is to scheme, to love, to play.
Strike out for plunder in the fight
Our fathers did so,” answered they,
“And they have said, ‘The world is right.’”

Men took the baubles at the call,
Men rose to wealth and power and state,
But he—the mightiest of them all—
Remained, because his heart was great.
The fool cried: “Life is but a jest,”
The schemer: “Earth is for the strong,”
The thoughtless: “Why think for the rest?”
But he cried: “Nay. The world is wrong.”

And friends declined, and fortune frowned,
And hope grew dim with health’s decay,
The thorns of hardship hedged him round,
But still he toiled from day to day—
From clue to clue, from year to year,
From law to law, from light to light,
Till came the triumph flashing clear—
“The world is wrong and I am right!”

“The Laws of Life, eternal, true,
Swerve not by prayer for that or this.
A Power hath given the world to you
And ye have made it what it is.
Why see worth perish, what accrue
Why see greed flourish day by day?
A Power hath given the world to you,
And ye can make it what ye may.”

No mourners wept beside his bier,
Scant homage to his grave was brought.
He left no wealth behind him here,
Only the splendour of his thought.
And as the brown earth, heaping slow,
Shut the rude coffin from the sight,
One who had known him long ago
Cried: “After all, the world was right!”

But Thought is king no clowns can bind,
And Genius, in its crowning hour,
Sows deep the seed that, for Mankind,
Springs, centuries hence, to splendid flower,
When, by that lonely stone of white,
With heads uncovered, men shall say:
“The world was wrong and he was right
Who died for what we reap to-day!”

poem by George Essex Evans
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Madona Mia

UNDER green apple-boughs
That never a storm will rouse,
My lady hath her house
Between two bowers;
In either of the twain
Red roses full of rain;
She hath for bondwomen
All kind of flowers.

She hath no handmaid fair
To draw her curled gold hair
Through rings of gold that bear
Her whole hair’s weight;
She hath no maids to stand
Gold-clothed on either hand;
In all the great green land
None is so great.

She hath no more to wear
But one white hood of vair
Drawn over eyes and hair,
Wrought with strange gold,
Made for some great queen’s head,
Some fair great queen since dead;
And one strait gown of red
Against the cold.

Beneath her eyelids deep
Love lying seems asleep,
Love, swift to wake, to weep,
To laugh, to gaze;
Her breasts are like white birds,
And all her gracious words
As water-grass to herds
In the June-days.

To her all dews that fall
And rains are musical;
Her flowers are fed from all,
Her joy from these;
In the deep-feathered firs
Their gift of joy is hers,
In the least breath that stirs
Across the trees.

She grows with greenest leaves,
Ripens with reddest sheaves,
Forgets, remembers, grieves,
And is not sad;
The quiet lands and skies
Leave light upon her eyes;
None knows her, weak or wise,
Or tired or glad.

None knows, none understands,
What flowers are like her hands;
Though you should search all lands
Wherein time grows,
What snows are like her feet,
Though his eyes burn with heat
Through gazing on my sweet,
Yet no man knows.

Only this thing is said;
That white and gold and red,
God’s three chief words, man’s bread
And oil and wine,
Were given her for dowers,
And kingdom of all hours,
And grace of goodly flowers
And various vine.

This is my lady’s praise:
God after many days
Wrought her in unknown ways,
In sunset lands;
This was my lady’s birth;
God gave her might and mirth
And laid his whole sweet earth
Between her hands.

Under deep apple-boughs
My lady hath her house;
She wears upon her brows
The flower thereof;
All saying but what God saith
To her is as vain breath;
She is more strong than death,
Being strong as love.

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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