Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO A LADY PUTTING OFF HER VEIL by WILLIAM STRODE

First Line: KEEP ON YOUR VEIL AND HIDE YOUR EYE
Last Line: WHEN LIFE IS DONE, WHERE SHALL I GO?
Subject(s): MORTALITY;

KEEP on your veil and hide your eye;
For with beholding you, I die!
Your fatal beauty, Gorgon-like,
Dead with astonishment will strike!
Your piercing eyes, if them I see,
Are worse than basilisks to me!

Hide from my sight those hills of snow
Their melting valley do not show!
Those azure paths lead to despair!
O, vex me not! Forbear! Forbear!
For, while I thus in torments dwell,
The sight of Heaven is worse than Hell!

Your dainty voice and warbling breath
Sound like a sentence passed for death!
Your dangling tresses are become
Like instruments of final Doom!
O, if an angel torture so;
When life is done, where shall I go?



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