Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO THE EGYPTIAN LADY SENNUWY, by HELEN HOOVEN SANTMYER First Line: With that same smile, scornful and sad and tender Last Line: If beauty alwys is truth, after all. Subject(s): Beauty; Egypt; Sennuwy, Princess (wife Of Hepzefa); Statues | ||||||||
With that same smile, scornful and sad and tender You thought of love, one of those summer days Gone in a night of many thousand years. You sat in heavy-scented, golden splendor, The courtly throng, the pomp and power and praise Lost to unseeing eyes, unheeding ears. . . . Only the artist caught your wandering gaze. He did not understand the score and sadness But carved your smile in this enduring guise, A dwelling for your spirit in the tomb. You knew that love is but a fleeting madness, That each man lives alone, and lonely dies. . . . You scorned yourself for quailing from your doom, Yet thought of love, and met the sculptor's eyes. And so you smiled, while dynasts came and went And sand slipped through your crumbling broken wall, While silence fell at last on echoing thunder Of wars that power of ancient empires spent. . . . Until at last, in this bright windy hall, We pause, who know that love is brief, and wonder If Beauty alwys is Truth, after all. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BAMBERGER REITER by MARY KINZIE FRAGMENT OF THE HEAD OF A QUEEN by CATE MARVIN STATUE AND BIRDS by LOUISE BOGAN STATUES IN THE PARK by BILLY COLLINS STATUETTE: LATE MINOAN by CECIL DAY LEWIS THE STATUE OF A LIBERTINE by RON PADGETT FOR OLD BELIEFS FORSAKEN by HELEN HOOVEN SANTMYER |
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