DID not true love disdain to own His spiritual duration, From paper fuel, I might guess Thy love and writing both surcease Together; but I cannot think The life and blood of love is ink; Yet as when Phoebus leaves our coast, (The surface bound with chains of frost,) Life is sustain'd by coarse repast, Such as in spring nauseates the taste; So in my winter, whilst you shine In the remotest tropic sign, Stramineous food, paper and quill, May fodder hungry love, until He re-obtain solstitial hours, To feast upon thy beauty's flowers. The wonders then of Nature we Within ourselves will justify: Or what monumental boast The first world made, the latter lost: Thy pointed flame shall constant 'bide As an eternal pyramid; The never-dying lamp of Urns Revived in my bosom burns: Th' attractive virtue of the North Resembleth thy magnetic worth; And from my scorcht heart, through mine eyes AEtnean flashes shall arise: We shall make good, when more unite, The fable of Hermaphrodite: The spring and harvest of our bliss The ripe and budding orange is; We little worlds shall thus rehearse The wonders of the universe, As a small watch keeps equal pace With the vast Sun's impetuous race. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN IN PARADISE by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS ON MONSIEUR'S DEPARTURE by ELIZABETH I IN A CATHEDRAL CITY by THOMAS HARDY WALT WHITMAN by FRANCIS HOWARD WILLIAMS VILLANELLE, WITH STEVENSON'S ASSISTANCE by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS AT TWO-AND-TWENTY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |