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Death of a Rose
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'Love and Sleep'
Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head.
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-coloured without white or red.
And her lips opened amourously, and said-
I wist not what, saving one word - Delight.
And all her face was honey to my mouth,
And all her body pasture to mine eyes,
The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire,
The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,
The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs
And glittering eyelids of my soul's desire.
A.C.Swinburne (1837-1909)
'Love Song'
Sweep the house clean,
hang the fresh curtains
in the windows
put a new dress
and come with me!
The elm is scattering
its little loaves
from a white sky!
Who shall hear of us
in the time to come?
Let him say there was
a burst of fragrance
from black branches.
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
'Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments'
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root ou the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
Mr. Shakespeare (1564-1616)
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