Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PALINODIA, by JAMES RYDER RANDALL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PALINODIA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Though it leave me ashes, I will thrust
Last Line: Through the dim vale of night.
Subject(s): Love; Salvation


THOUGH it leave me ashes, I will thrust
This Etna from my breast;
My times have been tumultuous, they shall know
The ecstasy of rest.

They marred the work of heaven when they scoff'd
My unpolluted truth—
Oh, it was death to feel the venom-dews
Trickling the veins of youth!

My mind was swung in blindness, like a cloud,
O'er caverns of despair;
My soul was a dead Carthage, with a doomed
And baffled Roman there.

Stung by the blare and trespass of the world,
I cursed it, on my knees,
Where, in its cell, monastic Amazon
Hymns to the cloistered trees.

I wrestled with my soul when twilight fowls
Began their rigadoon,
Where the lost cypress, like Ophelia, mourns
Above the gaunt lagoon.

Yes! I have pillaged the forbidden boughs
Of all their stealthy lore;
The fruit that shed its dust upon my lips
Was from Gomorrha's shore.

Love! I will cleanse those lips at Siloe's pool,
Incumbent to the sod;
I look upon my past, as pagans look
Upon their cloven god.

Love! I will kneel at holier knees again,
With sin-abashing brow,
And learn a new philosophy from faith
To save me from the slough.

Love! it was thy meek eyes and gentle words
That gave my spirit sight;
And it will follow thee to higher lands
Through the dim Vale of Night.





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