You would not need to flaunt yourself for me, With plum-red mouth and lupine in your hair, And the sweet shamelessness of shoulders bare; I should not need your grape-blue wine to be Tempted to love. This would be ecstasy Enough -- if sometime you would let me share The quiet of your tears, the still despair Of winter's frosty-fingered treachery. You are too kind -- when I should be content With half your favors, half your beauty spent; You spill your wine and waste your mad perfume. Behind my crowding pulse there is not room For the high bright desire that you awake. Withhold your beauty or my heart will break! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CANZONET: TO HIS COY LOVE by MICHAEL DRAYTON FIVE SOULS by WILLIAM NORMAN EWER TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS AGO by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN WHAT THEY ASK by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS ON A VOLUME OF ANONYNOUS POEMS ENTITLED A MASQUE OF POETS by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH NEVERNESS, OR THE ONE SHIP BEACHED ON ONE FAR DISTANT SHORE by MARGARET AVISON LILIES: 29 by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) ON THE LIGHTHOUSE AT ANTIBES by MATHILDE BLIND IN THE GARDEN (WITH APOLOGIES TO ALFRED NOYES) by MARJORIE W. BRACHLOW |