And then I knew the first vague bliss That swept through Lilith like strange fire, Consuming all her loveliness With one imperious desire, When in the twilight she beheld, Through the green apple shades obscure, The Lord God moulding from the dust Her splendid virgin paramour. I knew what aching shudder ran Through the dark bearers, file on file, When Pharaoh's daughter went to merge Her peerless beauty in the Nile; What slumbering deliciousness Awoke beside the Dorian stream When the young prince from over sea Broke on the lovely Spartan's dream; And all the fervour and desire, The raptures and the ecstasies, Of Aucassin and Nicollette, Of Abelard and Heloïse, And all the passionate despair, So bravely borne for many a year, Of Tristram and the dark Iseult, Of Launcelot and Guinevere! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WINTER TREES by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS THE PRETTY GIRL OF LOCH DAN by SAMUEL FERGUSON A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 15 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN NINETY-NINE IN THE SHADE by ROSSITER JOHNSON SONNET: DEATH-WARNINGS by FRANCISCO GOMEZ DE QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS MUTABILITY (2) by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY BETH GELERT; OR, THE GRAVE OF THE GREYHOUND by WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER |