There be none of Beauty’s DaughtersWith a magic like thee;And like music on the watersIs thy sweet voice to me:When, as if its sound were causingThe charmed ocean’s pausing;The waves lie still and gleaming,And the lulled winds seem dreaming; And the midnight moon is weavingHer bright chain o’er the deep;Whose breast is gently heaving,As in [...]
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Circe’s Torment
I regret bitterlyThe years of loving you in bothYour presence and absence, regretThe law, the vocationThat forbid me to keep you, the seaA sheet of glass, the sun-bleachedBeauty of the Greek ships: howCould I have power ifI had no wishTo transform you: asYou loved my body,As you found therePassion we held aboveAll other gifts, in [...]
Circe’s Power
I never turned anyone into a pig.Some people are pigs; I make themLook like pigs. I’m sick of your worldThat lets the outside disguise the inside. Your men weren’t bad men;Undisciplined lifeDid that to them. As pigs, Under the care ofMe and my ladies, theySweetened right up. Then I reversed the spell, showing you my [...]
Circe’s Grief
In the end, I made myselfKnown to your wife asA god would, in her own house, inIthaca, a voiceWithout a body: shePaused in her weaving, her head turningFirst to the right, then leftThough it was hopeless of courseTo trace that sound to anyObjective source: I doubtShe will return to her loomWith what she knows now. [...]
The Visitor
Down the hill, in the field of sweet alfalfa, they’re freezing each other, the children playing tag and I’m up at the house, I’min the picture window, thinand distant like the glimpse of a surfacing fish. What dark watersthe house is, behind me, settlinginto evening. Dusk and there are, of course, fireflies. Tell me,what was [...]
Longing
Come to me in my dreams, and thenBy day I shall be well again!For so the night will more than payThe hopeless longing of the day. Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,A messenger from radiant climes,And smile on thy new world, and beAs kind to others as to me! Or, as thou never cam’st [...]
O Mistress Mine
O Mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love’s coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know. What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What’s to come is still unsure: [...]