Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HATED, by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HATED, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You ask me where love fails me? - what I hate?
Last Line: Must be; but they shall have my malediction.
Alternate Author Name(s): Leigh, Arbor; Guggenberger, Mrs. Ignatz; Bevington, L. S.
Subject(s): Hate


YOU ask me where love fails me? -- what I hate?
I cannot blame, for all, I hold, is fate;
Yet there are hateful, unblameworthy things
That sap life's nobler mercies at their springs; --
All deathward, pious-voiced uncleannesses;
All cold, conceited, mouthing meannesses.
Time-serving pietists who lie for fame
Sooner than hear no echo of their name;
Souls readier to limit all we hallow
By their own shallow thoughts, than deem these shallow.
Perfidious power that no compunction knows;
'Cute cleverness that makes convenient shows;
The devil-hearted insolence of sin
That to its end through broken faith doth win;
False woman who will fawn upon the neck
Of wife whose hearth she warms her by to wreck;
Some sneaking lover who for alien lust
Will mock his home and soil his social trust;
The sour, uncandid treasurer of offence,
Who sneers down generous gift with common sense;
All cold, conceited, mouthing meannesses,
All deathward, decent-garbed uncleannesses; --
These and the like keep very far from me,
For all are lies, and all unsympathy.
Love cannot move them though it suffocate,
I do not blame -- I absolutely hate;
Such things of folly, perfidy, and fiction
Must be; but they shall have my malediction.








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