I gaze upon your portrait in my hand. And slowly, in a dream, I see you stand Silent before me, with your pressing gaze Of enigmatic calm, and all your face Smiling with that ironical repose Which is the weariness of one who knows. Dare I divine, then, what your visage dreams, So troubled and so strangely calm it seems? Consuming eyes consenting to confess The extreme ardour of their heaviness, The lassitude of passionate desires Denied, pale smoke of unaccomplished fires; Ah! in those shell-curved, purple eyelids bent Towards some most dolorous accomplishment, And in the painful patience of the mouth, (A sundered fruit that waits, in a great drouth, One draught of living water from the skies) And in the carnal mystery of the eyes, And in the burning pallor of the cheeks; Voice of the Flesh! this is the voice that speaks, In agony of spirit, or in grief Because desire dare not desire relief. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE YANKEE'S RETURN FROM CAMP [JUNE, 1775] by EDWARD BANGS A WINTER NIGHT by WILLIAM BARNES MY PRETTY ROSE TREE, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE CA' THE YOWES TO THE KNOWES' by ISOBEL (ISABEL) PAGAN HESPERUS THE BRINGER by SAPPHO FANCIES AT NAVESINK: 7 by WALT WHITMAN |