| Ode to a Naked Beauty | The Clod and the Pebble | Sonnet XIV |
| With chaste heart, and pure eyes I celebrate you, my beauty, restraining my blood so that the line surges and follows your contour, and you bed yourself in my verse, as in woodland, or wave-spume: earth’s perfume, sea’s music.Nakedly beautiful, whether it is your feet, arching at a primal touch of sound or breeze, or your ears, tiny spiral shells from the splendour of America’s oceans. Your breasts also, of equal fullness, overflowing with the living light and, yes, winged your eyelids of silken corn that disclose or enclose the deep twin landscapes of your eyes. |
Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair. fast payday loans for every one
So sang a little clod of clay, Love seeketh only self to please, |
If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love’s sake only. Do not say ‘I love her for her smile – her look – her way Of speaking gently, – for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’- For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee, – and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,- A creature might forget to weep, who bore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love’s sake, that evermore Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity. |
