Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO ONE IN ALIENATION: 1, by ARTHUR WILLIAM SYMONS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO ONE IN ALIENATION: 1, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Last night I saw you decked to meet
Last Line: (poor child!) a half-forgotten point of view
Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Estrangement; Outcasts


Last night I saw you decked to meet
The coming of those most reluctant feet:
The little bonnet that you wear
When you would fain, for his sake, be more fair;
The primrose ribbons that so grace
The perfect pallor of your face;
The dark gown folded back about the throat,
The folds of lacework that denote
All that beneath them, just beneath them, lies,
Waiting his eyes.

So the man came and took you; and we lay
So near and yet so far away,
You in his arms, awake for joy, and I
Awake for very misery,
Cursing a sleepless brain that would but scrawl
Your image on the aching wall,
That would but pang me with the sense
Of that most sweet accursed violence
Of lovers' hands that weary to caress
(Those hands!) your unforbidden loveliness.

And with the dawn that vision came again
To an unrested and recurrent brain:
To think your body, warm and white,
Lay in his arms all night;
That it was given him to surprise,
With those unhallowed eyes,
The secrets of your beauty, hid from me,
That I may never (may I never?) see:
I who adore you, he who finds in you
(Poor child!) a half-forgotten point of view





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