Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ON BURNING SOME OLD LETTERS, by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: With what odorous woods and spices Last Line: Love, and teach men what it meant. Subject(s): Letters | ||||||||
WITH what odorous woods and spices Spared for royal sacrifices, With what costly gums seld-seen, Hoarded to embalm a queen, With what frankincense and myrrh, Burn these precious parts of her, Full of life and light and sweetness As a summer day's completeness, Joy of sun and song of bird Running wild in every word, Full of all the superhuman Grace and winsomeness of woman? O'er these leaves her wrist has slid, Thrilled with veins where fire is hid 'Neath the skin's pellucid veil, Like the opal's passion pale; This her breath hath sweetened; this Still seems trembling with the kiss She half-ventured on my name, Brow and cheek and throat aflame; Over all caressing lies Sunshine left there by her eyes; From them all an effluence rare With her nearness fills the air, Till the murmur I half-hear Of her light feet drawing near. Rarest woods were coarse and rough, Sweetest spice not sweet enough, Too impure all earthly fire For this sacred funeral-pyre; These rich relics must suffice For their own dear sacrifice. Seek we first an altar fit For such victims laid on it: It shall be this slab brought home In old happy days from Rome, Lazuli, once blest to line Dian's inmost cell and shrine. Gently now I lay them there, Pure as Dian's forehead bare, Yet suffused with warmer hue, Such as only Latmos knew. Fire I gather from the sun In a virgin lens: 't is done! Mount the flames, red, yellow, blue, As her moods were shining through, Of the moment's impulse born, Moods of sweetness, playful scorn, Half defiance, half surrender, More than cruel, more than tender, Flouts, caresses, sunshine, shade, Gracious doublings of a maid Infinite in guileless art, Playing hide-seek with her heart. On the altar now, alas, There they lie a crinkling mass, Writhing still, as if with grief Went the life from every leaf; Then (heart-breaking palimpsest!) Vanishing ere wholly guessed, Suddenly some lines flash back, Traced in lightning on the black, And confess, till now denied, All the fire they strove to hide. What they told me, sacred trust, Stays to glorify my dust, There to burn through dusk and damp Like a mage's deathless lamp, While an atom of this frame Lasts to feed the dainty flame. All is ashes now, but they In my soul are laid away, And their radiance round me hovers Soft as moonlight over lovers, Shutting her and me alone In dream-Edens of our own; First of lovers to invent Love, and teach men what it meant. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOVE LETTER FROM AN IMPOSSIBLE LAND by WILLIAM MEREDITH ALL SHE WROTE by HARRYETTE MULLEN LETTER TO MAXINE SULLIVAN by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE AFTERLIFE: LETTER TO SAM HAMILL: 1 by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE AFTERLIFE: LETTER TO STEPHEN DOBYNS: 1 by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE AFTERLIFE: LETTER TO STEPHEN DOBYNS: 2 by HAYDEN CARRUTH LETTER TO MOTHER by JOHN CIARDI AFTER THE BURIAL by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |
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