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 | Collected poems of Herman Melville |  |
MADAM MIRROR
With wrecks in a garret I'm stranded,
Where, no longer returning a face,
I take to reflections the deeper
On memories far to retrace.
Where, no longer returning a face,
I take to reflections the deeper
On memories far to retrace.
In me have all people confided,
The maiden her charms has displayed,
And truths unrevealed and unuttered
To me have been freely betrayed.
Some truths I might tell of the toilet
Did not tenderness make me forget;
But the glance of proud beauty slow fading
It dies not away from me yet;
Nor the eyes too long ceasing to shine,—
Soliciting, shunning, well knowing that mine
Were too candid to flatter when met.
The maiden her charms has displayed,
And truths unrevealed and unuttered
To me have been freely betrayed.
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Did not tenderness make me forget;
But the glance of proud beauty slow fading
It dies not away from me yet;
Nor the eyes too long ceasing to shine,—
Soliciting, shunning, well knowing that mine
Were too candid to flatter when met.
But pledged unto trueness forever,
My confessional close as the friar's,
How sacred to me are the trusting,
Here nothing for scandal transpires.
But ah, what of all that is perished,
Nor less shall again be, again!
What pangs after parties of pleasure,
What smiles but disclosures of pain!
O, the tears of the hopeless unloved,
O, the start at old age drawing near—
And what shadows of thoughts more tragical far
Like clouds on a lake have been here!
My confessional close as the friar's,
How sacred to me are the trusting,
Here nothing for scandal transpires.
But ah, what of all that is perished,
Nor less shall again be, again!
What pangs after parties of pleasure,
What smiles but disclosures of pain!
O, the tears of the hopeless unloved,
O, the start at old age drawing near—
And what shadows of thoughts more tragical far
Like clouds on a lake have been here!
Tho' lone in a loft I must languish
Far from closet and parlor at strife,
Content I escape from the anguish
Of the Real and the Seeming in life.
Far from closet and parlor at strife,
Content I escape from the anguish
Of the Real and the Seeming in life.
| Collected poems of Herman Melville | |