Go on your way, and let me pass. You stop a wild despair. I would that I were turned to brass Like that chained lion there, Which, couchant by the postern gate, In weather foul or fair, Looks down serenely desolate, And nothing does but stare! Ah, what's to me the burgeoned year, The sad leaf or the gay? Let Launcelot and Queen Guinevere Their falcons fly this day. 'T will be as royal sport, pardie, As falconers have tried At Astolat -- but let me be! I would that I had died. There was a woman in the glade: Her hair was soft and brown, And long bent silken lashes weighed Her ivory eyelids down. I kissed her hand, I called her blest, I held her leal and fair -- She turned to shadow on my breast, And melted into air! And, lo! about me, fold on fold, A writhing serpent hung -- An eye of jet, a skin of gold, A garnet for a tongue! O, let the petted falcons fly Right merry in the sun; But let me be! for I shall die Before the year is done. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE TEN COMMANDMENTS by GEORGE SANTAYANA WISHES TO HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS by RICHARD CRASHAW NOT DEAD by ROBERT RANKE GRAVES THE TRIUMPHS OF OWEN: A FRAGMENT by THOMAS GRAY ANSWER TO MASTER WITHER'S SONG, 'SHALL I, WASTING IN DESPAIR?' by BEN JONSON THE MOTHER'S HEART by CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH SHERIDAN NORTON |