I have observed love: with incautious eyes Reading the passion ripples on blank faces, Clutches, evasions, pale connubial lies -- The wealth of ugliness, the dearth of graces: The vows, believed or not, that flood a way To victory for the amorous infidel: The boundless, restless, and depressing play Everywhere -- in myself, chiefest of all. And so I have grown cynical -- do you wonder? -- As cynical . . . as subsiding snow, Or rain pelting blackly after the thunder, Or the bright hours of spring, waking with low Glad cries, as of a lover with his love, Finding the world too dear, too glad, too brave! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...STANZAS; HOOD'S LAST POEM by THOMAS HOOD COMMEMORATIVE OF A NAVAL VICTORY by HERMAN MELVILLE THE CORAL GROVE by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL A VISION UPON [THIS CONCEIT] OF THE FAERIE QUEENE (2) by WALTER RALEIGH CIVIL WAR by CHARLES DAWSON SHANLY IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 1 by ALFRED TENNYSON THE FIRST-FOOT by ALEXANDER ANDERSON MY ANGUISH by INNOKENTI FYODOROVICH ANNENSKY TO LADY CHARLOTTYE GORDON; DRESSED IN A TARTAN SCOTCH BONNET by JAMES BEATTIE |