@3Rosamond.@1 Are you tir'd? But I seem shameful to you, shameworthy, Contemnable of good women, being so bad, So bad as I am. Yea, would God, would God, I had kept my face from this contempt of yours. Insolent custom would not anger me So as you do; more clean are you than I, Sweeter for gathering of the grace of God To perfume some accomplish'd work in heaven? I do not use to scorn, stay pure of hate, Seeing how myself am scorn'd unworthily; But anger here so takes me in the throat I would speak now for fear it strangle me. Here, let me feel your hair and hands and face; I see not flesh is holier than flesh, Or blood than blood more choicely qualified That scorn should live between them. Better am I Than many women; you are not over fair, Nor delicate with some exceeding good In the sweet flesh; you have no much tenderer soul Than love is moulded out of for God's use Who wrought our double need; you are not so choice That in the golden kingdom of your eyes All coins should melt for service. But I that am Part of the perfect witness for the world How good it is; I chosen in God's eyes To fill the lean account of under men, The lank and hunger-bitten ugliness Of half his people; I who make fair heads Bow, saying, "Though we be in no wise fair We have touch'd all beauty with our eyes, we have Some relish in the hand, and in the lips Some breath of it," because they saw me once; I whose curl'd hair was as a strong stak'd net To take the hunters and the hunt, and bind Faces and feet and hands; a golden gin Wherein the tawny-lidded lions fell, Broken at ankle; I that am yet, ah yet, And shall be till the worm hath share in me, Fairer than love or the clean truth of God, More sweet than sober customs of kind use That shackle pain and stablish temperance; I that have roses in my name, and make All flowers glad to set their color by; I that have held a land between twin lips And turn'd large England to a little kiss; God thinks not of me as contemptible; And that you think me even a smaller thing Than your own goodness and slight name of good, Your special, thin, particular repute, -- I would some mean could be but clear to me Not to contemn you. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...RHOECUS by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL MEARY WEDDED by WILLIAM BARNES PSALM 1; DONE INTO VERSE 1653 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE TO A CHALK-BLUE by PATRICK REGINALD CHALMERS SONNETS FOR BEAUTY by STANTON ARTHUR COBLENTZ |