YOURS is the sullen sorrow The disgrace is also mine; Your love was intense and thorough, Mine was the love of a growing flower For the sunshine. You had the power to explore me, Blossom me stalk by stalk, You woke my spirit, you bore me To consciousness, you gave me the dour Awareness -- then I suffered a balk. Body to body I could not Love you, although I would. We kissed, we kissed though we should not. You yielded, we threw the last cast, And it was no good. You only endured, and it broke Mt craftsman's nerve. No flesh responded to my stroke; So I failed to give you the last Fine torture you did deserve. You are shapely, you are adorned But opaque and null in the flesh; Who, had I but pierced with the thorned Full anguish, perhaps had been cast In a lovely illumined mesh. Like a painted window; the best Fire passed through your flesh, Undrossed it, and left it blest In clean new awareness. But now Who shall take you afresh? Now who will burn you free From your body's deadness and dross, Since the fire has failed in me? What man will stoop in your flesh to plough The shrieking cross? A mute, nearly beautiful thing Is your face, that fills me with shame As I see it hardening, I should have been cruel enough to bring You through the flame. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE REVEALER by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON EVE SPEAKS by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE LIGHT'OOD FIRE by JOHN HENRY BONER ON DIGITAL EXTREMITIES by FRANK GELETT BURGESS INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE DARKNESS IS THINNING by GREGORY I SONNET: TO DANTE by GUIDO CAVALCANTI THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 52. WILLOWWOOD (4) by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI |