Keep it -- your torn and rotting decency, Your antique toga with its quaint misfit. Keep it -- the world has little use for it, Or swaddled truths too bashful to be free. This is no age for sick humility, Or queasy goodness without strength enough To dare the keen and hungry edge of love, Or Fear that wraps itself in chastity. Hide in its crumbling folds. How should you know That virtue may be dirty and can grow Furtive and festering in a mind obscene. How should you know the world's glad, vulgar heart, The sensual health that is the richest part Of Life: so frankly carnal -- and so clean. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WHEN ON THE MARGE OF EVENING by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY WITH COLORS GAY by HOWARD S. ABBOTT NELL COOK; A LEGEND OF THE 'DARK ENTRY': THE KING'S SCHOLAR'S STORY by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM AUTUMN TINTS by MATHILDE BLIND |