In these drab days, alone there never cloys Your pallid grace, descending a wide stair, Wreathing a frontlet, holding a lily, sword in air: Queen of Fair Gestures, Princess of Poise. In these tame times your flames are mutinous! You speak verse. You die of love. You are ever fresh. You hold forth arms of dream, then arms of flesh, And when Phèdre appears, we are all incestuous. Avid of suffering, you deepen with the years; We have seen flowing—for they flow!—your tears: All the dew of our soul on your cheek lingers. But you know, Sarah, that at times there stray— And furtively you feel them as you play— The lips of Shakspere on your jeweled fingers. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LINES FROM A PLUTOCRATIC POETASTER TO A DITCH-DIGGER by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS A PRIZE RIDDLE ON HERSELF WHEN 24 by ELIZABETH FRANCES AMHERST CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: 3. OF CONTENTMENT by WILLIAM BASSE DEBORAH: THE SONG OF DEBORAH by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE THE THYROID GLAND by GAMALIEL BRADFORD |