Saturday, February 22, 2014

Give pleasance to your woman

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A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness--Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness;A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence;A sense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone existence;A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken--Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blossomed bough is broken.
Who is Lydia, pray, and who Is Hypatia? Softly, dear, Let me breathe it in your ear--They are you, and only you.And those other nameless twoWalking in Arcadian air--She that was so very fair?She that had the twilight hair?--They were you, dear, only you.If I speak of night or day,Grace of fern or bloom of grape,Hanging cloud or fountain spray,Gem or star or glistening dew,Or of mythologic shape,Psyche, Pyrrha, Daphne, say--I mean you, dear, you, just you.
My mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings, And yet recalls the very hour-- 'Twas noon by yonder village tower, And on the last blue noon in May-- The wind came briskly up this way, Crisping the brook beside the road; Then, pausing here, set down its load Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly Two petals from that wild-rose tree.
To spring belongs the violet, and the blown
Spice of the roses let the summer own.
Grant me this favor, Muse--all else withhold--
That I may not write verse when I am old.

And yet I pray you, Muse, delay the time!
Be not too ready to deny me rhyme;
And when the hour strikes, as it must, dear Muse,
I beg you very gently break the news.
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