Creation's and Creator's crowning good; Wall of infinitude; Foundation of the sky. In Heaven forecast And long'd for from eternity, Though laid the last; Reverberating dome, Of music cunningly built home Against the void and indolent disgrace Of unresponsive space; Little, sequester'd pleasure-house For God and His Spouse; Elaborately, yea, past conceiving, fair, Since, from the graced decorum of the hair, Ev'n to the tingling, sweet Soles of the simple, earth-confiding feet, And from the inmost heart Outwards unto the thin Silk curtains of the skin, Every last part Astonish'd hears And sweet replies to some like region of the spheres; Form'd for a dignity prophets but darkly name, Lest shameless men cry "Shame!" So rich and wealth conceal'd That Heaven and Hell fight chiefly for this field; Clinging to everything that pleases thee With indefectible fidelity; Alas, so true To all thy friendships that no grace Thee from, thy sin can wholly disembrace; Which thus 'bides with thee as the Jebusite, That, maugre all God's promises could do, The chosen People never conquer'd quite; Who therefore lived with them, And that by formal truce and as of right, In metropolitan Jerusalem. For which false fealty Thou needs must, for a season, lie In the grave's arms, foul and unshriven, Albeit, in Heaven, Thy crimson-throbbing Glow Into its old abode aye pants to go, And does with envy see Enoch, Elijah, and the Lady, she Who left the roses in her body's lieu. O, if the pleasures I have known in thee But my poor faith's poor first-fruits be, What quintessential, keen, ethereal bliss Then shall be his Who has thy birth-time's consecrating dew For death's sweet chrism retain'd, Quick, tender, virginal, and unprofaned! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNETS FROM SERIES RELATING TO EDGAR ALLEN POE: 1 by SARAH HELEN POWER WHITMAN AMONG THE MOUNTAINS by EDMUND JOHN ARMSTRONG THE WEE KNITTER by ABBIE FARWELL BROWN A DENIAL by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING ON ROBERT RIDDELL by ROBERT BURNS HECALE. DAYBREAK IN THE CITY by CALLIMACHUS TO A YOUNG LADY WHO ASKED ME TO WRITE SOMETHING ORIGINAL FOR HER ALBUM by THOMAS CAMPBELL |