Down, wanton, down! Have you know shame.
That at the whisper of Love's name,
Or Beauty's, presto! up you raise
Your angry head and stand at gaze?
(from "Down, Wanton, Down" by Robert Graves)
Yes, yes, we must "think fine and profess the arts."
(John Singer Sargeant)
Poem day?
ReplyDeleteHave I ever left this?
Probably...
The Sisters
After hot loveless nights, when cold winds stream
Sprinkling the frost and dew, before the light,
Bored with the foolish things that girls must dream
Because their beds are empty of delight,
Two sisters rise and strip. Out from the night
Their horses run to their low-whistled pleas—
Vast phantom shapes with eyeballs rolling white,
That sneeze a fiery stream about their knees:
Through the crisp manes their stealthy prowling hands,
Stronger than curbs, in slow caresses rove,
They gallop down across the milk-white sands
And wade far out into the sleeping cove:
The frost stings sweetly with a burning kiss
As intimate as love, as cold as death:
Their lips, whereon delicious tremours hiss
Fume with the ghostly pollen of their breath.
Far out on the grey silence of the flood
They watch the dawn in smouldering gyres expand
Beyond them: and the day burns through their blood
Like a white candle through a shuttered hand.
I often stand in front of this Sargeant -- it is large and you feel like part of it:
ReplyDeletehttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/John_Singer_Sargent_-_The_Daughters_of_Edward_Darley_Boit_1882.jpg
I'm a sap. I love Sargeant.
oops forgot
ReplyDeletepoem credit it to Roy Campbell.
"The grave's a fine and private place."
ReplyDeleteL, Was Sargeant gay?
ReplyDeleteS, "Gather ye rosebuds."