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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A QUESTION, by MAX EASTMAN First Line: Dark voiced and deeply passioned Last Line: To float with you in your still breast forever. Subject(s): Desire | |||
Dark-voiced and deeply passioned as the dim Vermilion-lighted mysteries of faith and music In cathedrals old and holy; Dusk-eyed and velvet-throated as the slim Young warm Madonna-Magdalens of saints In painted windows rich with melancholy; Dear friend and distant stranger: when the sum Of all our light, our wisdom, is gone out, And night has dimmed the candle of her vesper, Do you not sometimes simply rise and come, Feeling along the ray of my desire With silent hands and barefoot steps that whisper? I see the dusky circles of your eyes Like burnt hot torches in your moon-pale flesh, Your lips like warm wounds painted on its pallor, Your quickened vivid breasts that fall and rise Only too tenderly to pierce the veil That clings on them, but cannot hide their color; It cannot hide the flowing of your limbs, The pure bold flame of motion that you are -- Earth's vestal unto earth's divine communion. Is it a lonely phantom that but swims Up from the depth of my own long desire? Has not my dream in yours a dream-companion? Your speech is motion -- mine is poetry. You will not answer what I dare to ask; You will flow silent as a sacred river. And I who watch you in sad ecstasy, Have said my question as a saint his prayer, To float with you in your still breast forever. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AMERICAN WEDDING by ESSEX HEMPHILL HISTORY OF DESIRE by TONY HOAGLAND |
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