Thursday, February 26, 2009

It Is Not Beauty I Demand

It is not beauty I demand,
A crystal brow, the moon's despair,
Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,
Not mermaid's yellow pride of hair.

Tell me not of your starry eyes,
Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts where sleeping Cupid lies,
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed.

A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks,
Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours,
A breath that softer music speaks
Than summer winds a-wooing flowers.

These are but gauds; nay, what are lips?
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer slips
Full oft he perishes on them.

And what are cheeks but ensigns oft
That wave hot youth to fields of blood?
Did Helen's breast though ne'er so soft,
Do Greece or Ilium any good?

Eyes can with baleful ardor burn,
Poison can breath that erst perfumed,
There's many a white hand holds an urn
With lovers' hearts to dust consumed.

For crystal brows-there's naught within,
They are but empty cells for pride;
He who the Siren's hair would win
Is mostly strangled in the tide.

-George Darley-

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Epitaph on One Who Lived to See His Work's Monument

"...Video Mihi Nunc Frustra Sumptum Esse Laborem."

What was the building of his broken hands,
Itself lies broken, strength of stature thence
Fallen in time. He, in death's afterlands,
Discovered late his labor's vain expense.