FAIR yellow murderess, whose gilded head Gleaming with deaths; whose deadly body white, Writ o'er with secret records of the dead; Whose tranquil eyes, that hide the dead from sight Down in their tenderest depth and bluest bloom; Whose strange unnatural grace, whose prolonged youth, Are for my death now and the shameful doom Of all the man I might have been in truth, Your fell smile, sweetened still, lest I might shun Its lingering murder, with a kiss for lure, Is like the fascinating steel that one Most vengeful in his last revenge, and sure The victim lies beneath him, passes slow, Again and oft again before his eyes, And over all his frame, that he may know And suffer the whole death before he dies. Will you not slay me? Stab me; yea, somehow, Deep in the heart: say some foul word to last, And let me hate you as I love you now. Oh, would I might but see you turn and cast That false fair beauty that you e'en shall lose, And fall down there and writhe about my feet, The crooked loathly viper I shall bruise Through all eternity:— Nay, kiss me, Sweet! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LEONARDO'S 'MONNA LISA' by EDWARD DOWDEN EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT by ALEXANDER POPE SILEX SCINTIALLANS: THEY ARE ALL GONE by HENRY VAUGHAN A RECEIPT FOR WRITING A NOVEL by MARY (CUMBERLAND) ALCOCK THE IVORY CRADLE by AUGUSTE ANGELLIER |