IN those old days you were called beautiful, But I have worn the beauty from your face; The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on Beauty and the remembrance of things gone. Even your voice is altered when you speak, Or is grown mute with old anxiety For me. Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight, And then under the flame a glowing dome Deepens slowly into blood-like light:— So did you flame and in flame take delight, So are you hollow'd now with aching fire. But I still warm me and make there my home, Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly For me. Now my lips falling on your silver'd skull, My fingers in the valleys of your cheeks, Or my hands in your thin strong hands fast caught, Your body clutched to mine, mine bent to yours: Now love undying feeds on love beautiful, Now, now I am but thought kissing your thought. —And can it be in your heart's music speaks A deeper rhythm hearing mine: can it be Indeed for me? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MONTEREY [SEPTEMBER 23, 1846] by CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN KEENAN'S CHARGE by GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP AN UNINSCRIBED MONUMENT - BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS by HERMAN MELVILLE HARVEST MOON: 1914 by JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY SUMMER. THE SECOND PASTORAL, OR ALEXIS by ALEXANDER POPE JUDGE NOT by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER A PAUSE by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI |