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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO LIVES. PART 1: 6 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: HER BEAUTY WAS UPON ME. THAT ALONE
Last Line: AS OF SOME GREAT EVENT OF OTHER DAYS.
Subject(s): BEAUTY;

Her beauty was upon me. That alone
Might well have tortured reason from its place:
To look upon that living Titian face,
And the fair Milo's form not now in stone,
And pass . . . when, though but for a little space,
In my young manhood they might be my own!
To look . . . and pass. I looked . . . and could not pass.
And unto pity for a human lot
Came that great pity Beauty had begot
(The old Vergilian truth) . . . My memory has,
Strangely, half lost her beauty; but there be
Some in the town, less close to her sweet ways,
Who still remark how beautiful was she,
As of some great event of other days.



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