Mundi et Cordis De Rebus Sempiternis et Temporariis: Carmina. Poems and Sonnets. By Thomas Wade |
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XVII. | XVII.
BEAUTY'S PREDICAMENT. |
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Mundi et Cordis | ||
178
XVII. BEAUTY'S PREDICAMENT.
'Twixt Passion and Indifference Beauty sat;Prudence to this, Love swaying her to that:
And thus Indifference with his cold mouth spoke:—
“Most easy, Lady! is my quiet yoke:
I lead thee nor to trespass nor desire;
And hold thee temperate in the midst of fire!”
Said Passion, with a voice all tremulous—
His pale cheek crimson'd, eye diaphanous:—
“O, fly me not for him to whom the sun,
Moon, stars, in their blue-bedded union,
Are but a common show; whom flowers and song
Charm to no feeling as he gropes along;
Who, meting all things with a niggard measure,
Still coldly stagnates betwixt grief and pleasure;
And, freezing, in his cell doth sleep and die,
With no heart his in all mortality!
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And robe the grey morn and the purple even
In more than their own glory; air and skies
Fill with dream'd memories of Paradise;
And bid the earth teem with high thoughts and feelings
That for my listless foe have no revealings!
I with a word can wake heart-melody;
I with a glance can make felicity;
I with a touch can call up ecstasy!”—
And what did lady Beauty in this strait?
As Prudence bade, to where Indifference sate
She turn'd, and seem'd to move: Love nearer flew,
And an invisible chain so round her threw,
That, whilst to reach Indifference she tried,
He drew her deftly to sweet Passion's side;
And fix'd her there a prisoner, rapt and bound.
But long she breathed not on this human ground!
What chanced was sad: in that new, warm controul,
She died amid the sweets of her own soul—
Just as poor bees, in station over-sunny,
Are drown'd i' the hive of their own molten honey.
Mundi et Cordis | ||