The Revelation of St. Love the Divine | ||
2
[Yea: lust insults, but love transfigures, sense]
“I comprehend a love so fiery hot,
It burns its natural veil of august shame,
And stands sublimely in the nude, as chaste
As Medicean Venus.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
It burns its natural veil of august shame,
And stands sublimely in the nude, as chaste
As Medicean Venus.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Yea: lust insults, but love transfigures, sense;
And lust has veils, but inwardly is nude;
Love is the child unshamed, and lust, the prude;
Love human is; lust, angel in pretence;
Familiar love can never give offence;
Self-conscious, anxious lust is ever rude;
For lust is only love's similitude,
Distorted image of true excellence.
3
On savourers of poison at the feast
Of Love, the bridegroom! For as beast from man
Immeasurably far, as man to beast
Indefinitely near, so small the span
From love to lust, so wide as West from East!
The Revelation of St. Love the Divine | ||