Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THYSELF by JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

Poet Analysis

First Line: GIVE ME THYSELF
Last Line: EACH PINES ALONE AND MAY NOT ISSUE THENCE.
GIVE me thyself! It were as well to cry:
Give me the splendor of this night of June!
Give me yon star upon the swart lagoon
Trembling in unapproach'd serenity!
Our gondola, that four swift oarsmen ply,
Shoots from the darkening Lido's sandy dune,
Splits with her steel the mirrors of the moon,
Shivers the star-beams that before us fly.
Give me thyself! This prayer is even a knell,
Warning me back to mine own impotence.
Self gives not self; and souls sequester'd dwell
In the dark fortalice of thought and sense,
Where, though life's prisoners call from cell to cell,
Each pines alone and may not issue thence.



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