What it is to breathe and live without life; How to be pale with anguish, red with fear; T' have peace abroad, and nought within but strife; Wish to be present, and yet shun t' appear; How to be bold far off, and bashful near; How to think much, and have no words to speak; To crave redress, yet hold affliction dear; To have affection strong, a body weak; Never to find, and evermore to seek, And seek that which I dare not hope to find; T' affect this life, and yet this life disleeke; Grateful t' another, to myself unkind. This cruel knowledge of these contraries, Delia, my heart hath learned out of those eyes. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE JOURNEY by EMILY DICKINSON SANTORIN (A LEGEND OF THE AEGEAN) by JAMES ELROY FLECKER SONNET ON SITTING DOWN TO READ KING LEAR ONCE AGAIN by JOHN KEATS TO HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW; ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27 FEB. 1867 by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL THE BROOKSIDE by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES FROM A YOUNG WOMAN TO AN OLD OFFICER WHO COURTED HER by ELIZABETH FRANCES AMHERST |