If you, my sweet, were homely as a clod, Without this dower of beauty I adore, I still should love you as a thing from God Perfect beyond what I had known before; But here the marvel is: these candid eyes, More beautiful than stars; this gleaming hair, Coiled and recoiled in dark mysterious plies, Too heavy for the little head to bear; These hands, so shaped for giving; and these lips For speech so glorified with tenderness, For the true touch of love, wherefrom there slips More from the heart than these poor words confess. O living vase of life, within whose fold, So fragile and so exquisitely pure, The seed of immortality finds hold For all that bids this fearful life endure --: How can it be that powers that love the world Shall change, remove, resign you to the land Of death before the darkness half lies furled -- I gaze on you; I cannot understand! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET - REALITIES: 1 by EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS THE LATTER DAY by THOMAS HASTINGS THE LILY IN CRYSTAL by ROBERT HERRICK TO MY NINETH DECADE by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR PALINGENESIS by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW TO THE UNKNOWN EROS: BOOK 2: 3. ARBOR VITAE by COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING: 2. AND YET by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |