I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing
lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of
the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the
year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full
of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit
of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things
go, not one lasts.
You bid me to sleep,--
But why, O Daughter of Beauty,
Was beauty thus born in the world?
Since out of these shadowy eyes
The wonder shall pass!
And out of this surging and passionate breast
The dream shall depart!
And out of these delicate rivers of warmth
The fire shall wither and fail!
And youth like a bird from your body shall fly!
And Time like a fang on your flesh shall feed!
And this perilous bosom that pulses with love
Shall go down to the dust from which it arose,--
Yet Daughter of Beauty, close,
Close to its sumptuous warmth
You hold my sorrowing head,
I CAN endure the blight of drought
And the black rigour of my wild,
But not the name of Beauty on his mouth
And not to see him with a child.
I WILL not love you for my duty,
Nor for all your treasure,
But I will love because of beauty,
And because of pleasure.
The boy that I shall bear will be a love-child.
Conceived in holy blindness,
I give him to the world who shall be reconciled
To loving-kindness.
Since I no longer love for duty,
Nor for all man's treasure,
And since I bear the child to Beauty
Because of pleasure.
Come, my Content,
The hungry days are spent! —
Beauty, illumine me
As sunlight fills a narrow waveless sea!
Am I pleasant?
Tell me that, old Wise!
Let me look into your eyes,
To see if you can comprehend my beauty,
That is a lover's duty.
I look at you to see
If you can think of anything but me.
Ah, you remember praise and your philosophy!
My love shall be a sphere of silence and of light,
Where Love is all alone with love's delight. —
Here is a woodcutter who is so weak
With love of me, he cannot speak.
Tell me, dumb man, am I pleasant, am I pleasant?
Farewell, philosopher! I love a peasant.
As I wandered through the eight hundred and eight streets of the city,
I saw nothing so beautiful
As the Women of the Green Houses,
With their girdles of spun gold.
And their long-sleeved dresses.
Coloured like the graining of wood.
As they walk.
The hems of their outer garments flutter open,
And the blood-red linings glow like sharp-toothed maple leaves
In Autumn.
Deborah and Christopher brought me dandelions,
Kenton brought me buttercups with summer on
their breath,
But Michael brought an autumn leaf, like lacy
filigree,
A wan leaf, a ghost leaf, beautiful as death.
Death in all loveliness, fragile and exquisite,
Who but he would choose it from all the blossoming
land?
Who but he would find it where it hid among the
flowers?
Death in all loveliness, he laid it in my hand.
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,
Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.
Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O! let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,--
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.