BRIGHT fish, weak victim of my wiles, How comes it that my art beguiles The wariest of thy race? Let mine return the answer: we Are charmed as readily as he, And snared to our disgrace. Some lovely morn Life's rippling stream Divinely glistens and we dream, Nor reck that baleful eyes, Keen to allure, have marked our state, And deck some bright bewitching bait In Beauty's fairest guise. Lo! Passion suns his splendid wings; Or Pleasure flaunts gay burnished things With soul-enchanting look: Life's smiling water flashes fire; Who thinks his throbbing heart's desire Masks a deceitful hook? Who reckons with the fiendish rank That stud our mortal being's bank, Each dangling some rare treat? God! how they dance before our eyes, And skirmish till our spirits rise To front the gaudy cheat! "Such hues, such radiant wings unfurled, It must have flown from a true world!" (Craft hears with bated breath;) The vision meets our wildest hopes; Our spirit upward darts, and opes To drink in painted Death! Mad Evil on the shore gives play, And chuckles as we glide away; Too late! yet no! -- the snare Kind Mercy counteracts perchance: And now when sunny wavelets dance Our hearts of Guile beware. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EMERGENCY HAYING by HAYDEN CARRUTH TO KNOW IN REVERIE THE ONLY PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE ABSOLUTE by HAYDEN CARRUTH MATE (1) by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON SOUVENIR by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON DR. SCUDDER'S CLINICAL LECTURE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: REV. LEMUEL WILEY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |