GREAT passions I awake that must Bow any woman to the dust With fear lest she should fail to rise As high as those enamoured eyes. Now for those flying days and sweet I sit in Beauty's Mercy-Seat. My smiles, my favours I award, Since I am beautiful, adored. They praise my cheeks, my lips, my eyes, With Love's most exquisite flatteries, Covet my hands that they may kiss And to their ardent bosoms press. My foot upon the nursery stair Makes them a music rich and rare; My skirt that rustles as I come For very rapture strikes them dumb. What jealousies of word and glance! The light of my poor countenance Lights up their world that else were drear. "But you are lovely, mother dear!" I go not to my grave but I Know Beauty's full supremacy: Like Cleopatra's self, I prove The very heights and depths of Love. So to be loved, so to be wooed, Oh, more than mortal woman should! What if she fail or fall behind! Lord, make me worthy, keep them blind! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE QUESTION by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON WHAT MY LOVER SAID by HOMER GREENE HOME THOUGHTS FROM EUROPE by HENRY VAN DYKE WISTFULNESS by KATHARINE ADAMS QUATRAIN: FROM EASTERN SOURCES: 1 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH EPITAPH ON NOISY POLEMIC (BURNS'S 'BLETH'RIN BITCH') by ROBERT BURNS TO MR. RENTON, BERWICK by ROBERT BURNS |