@3Body.@1 ART thou for breaking faith, after these years, These many married years Wherein we have ourselves so well delighted? Why art thou sick? Art thou beginning fears That our dear joys have been unholy things? Trust me, since we have been so long plighted,— Whate'er be this white worship thou dost mean To reach on these unlucky wings,— Thou wilt miss the wonder I have made for thee Of this dear world with my fashioning senses, The blue, the fragrance, the singing, and the green. And thou wilt find, not having me, Crippled thy high powers, gone to doubt Thy indignation and thy love, without Help of my lust, and the anger of my blood, And my tears. Try me again; dost thou remember how we stood And lookt upon the world exultingly? What is for rapture better than these?— Great places of grassy land, and all the air One quiet, the sun taking golden ease Upon an afternoon; Tall hills that stand in weather-blinded trances As if they heard, drawn upward and held there, Some god's eternal tune; I made them so, I with my fashioning senses Made the devoted hills: have their great patiences Not lent thee any health of ecstasy? Or when the north came shouting to the beach, Wind that would gag in his throat a lion's speech, And spindrift with a whining hiss went by Like swords,—wert thou not glad with me? O who will lodge thee better than I have done In exultation?—I who alone Can wash thee in the sacring of moonlight, Or send thee soaring even that above Into the wise and unimaginable night, The chambers of the holy fear, Or bring thee to the breasts of love. @3Soul.@1 Dear Body, my loved friend, poor thanks have I For all this service. As if fires had made me clean, I come out of thy experience, Thy blue, thy fragrance, thy singing, and thy green, Passions of love, and most, that holy fear: Well hast thou done to me with every sense. But there's for me a fiercer kind Of joy, that feels not, knows not, deaf and blind: And these but led to it, that we did try When we were person, thou and I; Woe for me if I should dare Partake in person now I see The lights of unware ecstasy. I must not in amazement stay, Henceforth I am for a way Beyond thy senses, beauty and fear, Beyond wonder even. I want neither earth nor heaven, I will not have ken or desire, But only joy higher and higher Burning knowledge in its white fire Till I am no more aware And no more saying "I am I," But all is perfect ecstasy. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE THE MALDIVE SHARK by HERMAN MELVILLE THE METAMORPHOSIS OF THE WALNUT-TREE OF BOARSTELL: ECLOGUE by WILLIAM BASSE BEFORE THE TEMPLE by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN PAURA NON E NELLA CARITA by GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE THE MERMAID by LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON |