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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MUNDI VICTIMA: 2 by ARTHUR WILLIAM SYMONS

Poet Analysis

First Line: IF THE ASTROLOGERS SPEAK TRUTH, WHO TELL
Last Line: KNOWING THAT MY DESIRE HAD COME TO ME.
If the astrologers speak truth, who tell
That the stars make for us our heaven and hell,
My passionate and perverse horoscope,
Where the intellectual forces may not cope
With Scorpio, Herschel, Venus, and the Moon,
Marked in my life that love in me should swoon
Into the arms of strange affinities.
It was myself looked at me with your eyes,
Where Venus and the Moon with Herschel strove
In some ambiguous paradox of love.
When first I touched your hand I felt the thrill
Knit heart to heart, and at the touch your will
Became as my will, and my will became
As your will, and an unappeasable flame
Was lighted when your lips and mine first met
In that long kiss my lips shall not forget
When I am aged with eternity.
I knew that my desire had come to me,
And that the world was ended and begun,
And I should never more beneath the sun
Go lightly forth on any wayfaring.
I knew that I should suffer for this thing,
For this completion of the impossible,
This mystical marriage of heaven and hell,
With anguish and with extreme agony,
Knowing that my desire had come to me.



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