Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A PROPOSAL, by CHARLES V. H. ROBERTS First Line: Beloved, I love thee! With such words / wouldst thou Last Line: In life, in love, in soul, unto eternity! Subject(s): Future Life; Love - Beginnings; Passion; Retribution; Eternity; After Life | ||||||||
Beloved, I love thee! With such words wouldst thou Have further pleading? Thou canst o'erhear the beating Of my heart. Take it, and give me in Exchange thy soul! The unexpected movings Of our lives should henceforth be together. Be my wedded wife: put in my arms What Fate decreed mine own,calm days of peace, And sweetest ecstasies, one heart, one honour. Death through cycles in one day elapse; Through centuries our souls together soar away. Yet it seems, Beloved, we've loved before: Oh! canst thou not remembera sort of palace Casement, nine hundred and a thousand years Ago? The little hill of Calvary loomed Three crosses 'gainst the sky. Perhaps we met, Even when the Spirit of God breathed life Into a planet, and the moon first dimmed In cold tranquility the day, the wild stars Later bathed the blacker harmony of night. Canst thou feel the memoried ache of my Embracesperhaps some Prince of Egypt I, Like those strange men portrayed in histories, Or in the pictures hanging here upon the wall? Thou sat upon a stately bed, thy jewels A-shiver as pearls upon the shallow Reefs beneath the glitter of the rising sun. We might recall old Socrates, wisdom, Joy and pleasure, aeons drunk with Eastern Passion, pompous temples, doors of beaten gold, An Alexandrian sky blinking with a million eyes. Ah! even in that day, thy spirit hungered; But all without the everlasting Bread of Life. But whether or no, thou didst caress the kings Of distant stars, before this Earth was moulded Into Space; or thou wert cherished by A Babylon prince in the derision of A heathen dawn, I know now, that thou art mine! In life, in love, in soul, unto Eternity! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IKON: THE HARROWING OF HELL by DENISE LEVERTOV LEEK STREET by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR UNABLE TO FIND by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR THE AFTERLIFE: LETTER TO STEPHEN DOBYNS 3 by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE AFTERLIFE: LETTER TO STEPHEN DOBYNS: 1 by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE AFTERLIFE: LETTER TO STEPHEN DOBYNS: 2 by HAYDEN CARRUTH WRITING IN THE AFTERLIFE by BILLY COLLINS A SOLDIER'S FAREWELL by CHARLES V. H. ROBERTS |
|