I worship the greatest first -- (it were sweet, the couch, the brighter ripple of cloth over the dipped fleece; the thought: her bones under the flesh are white as sand which along a beach covers but keeps the print of the crescent shapes beneath: I thought: between cloth and fleece, so her body lies.) I worship first, the great -- (ah, sweet, your eyes -- what God, invoked in Crete, gave them the gift to part as the Sidonian myrtle-flower suddenly, wide and swart, then swiftly, the eye-lids having provoked our hearts -- as suddenly beat and close.) I worship the feet, flawless, that haunt the hills -- (ah, sweet, dare I think, beneath fetter of golden clasp, of the rhythm, the fall and rise of yours, carven, slight beneath straps of gold that keep their slender beauty caught, like wings and bodies of trapped birds.) I worship the greatest first -- (suddenly into my brain -- the flash of sun on the snow, the fringe of light and the drift, the crest and the hill-shadow -- ah, surely now I forget, ah splendour, my goddess turns: or was it the sudden heat, beneath quivering of molten flesh, of veins, purple as violets?) | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CHURCH-MUSICK [CHURCH MUSIC] by GEORGE HERBERT THE WOODSPURGE by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE CHERRY TREES by PHILIP EDWARD THOMAS TO A SNOWFLAKE by FRANCIS THOMPSON OLD SAUGATUCK MILL by GRACE JEWETT AUSTIN |