The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: C
AGE
O Age, thou art the very thief of joy,
For thou hast rifled many a proud fool
Of all his passions, hoarded by a rule
Of stern economy. Him, yet a boy,
Harsh wisdom governed. Others turned to toy
With lusty passion. He was chaste and cool
As a young Dorian in Lycurgus' school.
Ah me, that thou such souls shouldst dare annoy.
Thus did he gather him a store of pleasure,
Nor cared to touch what he so hardly won,
But led long years of solitary strife;
And, when the rest should have consumed their treasure,
He thought to sit him in the evening sun
And taste the sweet fruits of a sober life.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: CVI
THE SUBLIME
To stand upon a windy pinnacle,
Beneath the infinite blue of the blue noon,
And underfoot a valley terrible
As that dim gulf, where sense and being swoon
When the soul parts; a giant valley strewn
With giant rocks; asleep, and vast, and still,
And far away. The torrent, which has hewn
His pathway through the entrails of the hill,
Now crawls along the bottom and anon
Lifts up his voice, a muffled tremulous roar,
Borne on the wind an instant, and then gone
Back to the caverns of the middle air;
A voice as of a nation overthrown
With beat of drums, when hosts have marched to war.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: VIII
It was a booth no larger than the rest,
No loftier fashioned and no more sublime,
As poor a shrine as ever youth possessed
In which to worship truth revealed in time.
Yet to my soul the mean remembrance clings
With all the folly of that far fair eve,
And my pulse throbs with lost imaginings,
And passion rises from its grave to grieve.
Vain dreams, brute images! and over all
The shrill--voiced dwarf its hierarch and priest,
Vaunting its praise, a pagan prince of Baal.
It scared me as of some wild idol feast.
``The Booth of Beauty,'' thus it was I read,
Blazoned in scarlet letters overhead.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: XLVII
Sublime discussions! Let who will be wise!
These are the things that touch us and transcend.
The logic of all beauty is surprise,
The reason of all love the unseen end.
Still as they argued on of this and that,
Turning perchance to me as arbiter
Where in my corner I still speechless sat
To end their strife, my vision seemed to clear,
The scales fell from my eyes of ignorance,
The terror from my heart. One thing alone
Stood plain before me, the supreme fair chance
Of a first fortune, glorious and unknown,
Which beckoned me with no uncertain hand
To touch and taste and learn and understand.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Natalia’s Resurrection: Sonnet XVIII
Nor were the rest astonished. Even he,
Natalia's lord, in all complacent grace
Looked on approving of her act when she
Stepped forward with her face to Adrian's face,
And touched his lips and told him of the truth
How all was ended now of her old life,
With the sad barrier that had marred their youth:
Husband no longer and no longer wife,
Natalia had grown free. Then the proud lover
Gave thanks to God and took her arm in his,
Fearless how now their love they should discover
To any anger of suspicious eyes,
And led her forth his bride before them all
With solemn music to the banquet--hall.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet IV
Behold the deed is done. Here endeth all
That bound my grief to its ancestral ways.
I have passed out, as from a funeral,
From my dead home, and in the great world's gaze
Henceforth I stand, a pilgrim of new days,
On the high road of life. Where I was thrall,
See, I am master, being passionless;
And, having nothing now, am lord of all.
How glorious is the world! Its infinite grace
Surprises me--and not as erst with fear,
But as one meets a woman face to face,
Loved once and unforgotten and still dear
In certain moods and seasons. So to me
The fair world smiles to--day, yet leaves me free.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: LVII
This was my term of glory. All who know
Something of life will guess untold the end.
In love, one ever kisses for his woe,
One lends his cheek, alas! or seems to lend,
One has the pleasure, one the penalties,
One is in earnest, one has time to laugh,
One turns impatient from imploring eyes,
And one in terror spells love's epitaph.
There was no wisdom in this love of mine,
Therefore it perished earlier than the rest,
Although I poured out all my heart like wine
And watered it with tears, and prayed unblest
In my soul's rage to all the Saints of heaven
To give me this and yet to be forgiven.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: XIV
Me, too, she doubtless read. For, with her hand
Raised as for help and pointing to a chair,
She bade me, with a gesture, part command
And part entreaty, I would set her there.
She could not see, she said, the Queen of Love
My eyes so coveted, and laughed and laid
Upon my lips the fingers of her glove
When I protested at the words she said.
I hardly know how it all came about
But did her bidding as she would, and she
From her new vantage bore the humour out
And mocked the more at each new mockery.
And still she held my arm and I her dress,
``Lest she should fall,'' she said, in waywardness.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: XVII
I touched that knee. She did not show surprise,
And the earth had not opened at our feet.
She did not even laugh. Her foolish eyes
Twinkled a moment in her cheeks, then set
Like fog--bound stars for ever from my sight.
And at a signal from the little woman,
Who clung to me still, a chorus left and right
Of laughter rose Homeric and inhuman,
Drowning all further sense in one wild roar.
I heard the spotted girl with leopard lips
Complain that she was hungry as before,
And all the world was merged in an eclipse,
Darkening the air around and overhead,
And then I broke away and turned and fled.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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A Relapse
I thought that I had done with fleshly things,
That in the azure of high thought my soul
Had learned to fly on less substantial wings
To a new Heaven, a sublimer goal.
I thought that I was wise beneath the cowl
Of my dead hopes, beyond all power of Spring's
Most eloquent music to again cajole,
And that my service was the King of Kings.
--But look, alas, how thoughtless thought can be,
For to me thinking thus one ventured in
Bearing a letter and I read your name.
Then in an instant through my limbs a flame
Of pleasure ran, and wrought such change in me
That I was eager for all loveliest sin.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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