Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PRIESTESSES, by ROYALL HENDERSON SNOW


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PRIESTESSES, by                    
First Line: The delicate unearthly music
Last Line: Of conquest on a thousand fields.
Subject(s): Hearts; Love; Man-woman Relationships; Relationships; Male-female Relations


THE delicate unearthly music
Of still violins awakes
For loving hands and lovers only;
And words, like mistresses of men
That give their bodies to a common use
Reserve a chapel in their hearts
That none may see save in all holiness.

We should be tender of them, that bandied on all human tongues
They yet preserve as steady as the slow straight burning of cathedral candles
Their faith with loveliness.
They serve the wanton, but to those accredited
They open gates on gardens glimmering with eerie lanterns,
Or fling up a radiance of scattered sparks,
Or catch and echo Roland's horn once more.

Airily imperious of whim
As Vivien's caprice for Merlin
In Broceliande
There are words as splendidly flirtatious
As tall gold-headed girls;
Their laughter quivers in and out our speech
Like windy flickering of sunlight on wet leaves,
It gleams against those bolder words
Whose valiance has the ring of metal struck, —
Of conquest on a thousand fields.





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