Laurana's Song

Who ’ll have the crumpled pieces of a heart? Let him take mine! Who ’ll give his whole of passion for a part, And call ’t divine? Who ’ll have the soiled remainder of desire? Who ’ll warm his fingers at a burnt-out fire? Who ’ll drink the lees of love, and cast i’ the mire The nobler wine? Let him come here, and kiss me on the mouth, And have his will! Love dead and dry as summer in the South When winds are still, And all the leafage shrivels in the heat! Let him come here and linger at my feet Till he grow weary with the over-sweet, And die, or kill.

Collection: 
English
Richard Hovey

More from Poet

  • The Battle of Manila

    A Fragment [May 1, 1898] BY Cavité on the bay ’T was the Spanish squadron lay; And the red dawn was creeping O’er the city that lay sleeping To the east, like a bride, in the May. There was peace at Manila, In the May morn at Manila,— When ho, the Spanish admiral Awoke to find our line Had...

  • Beethoven’s Third Symphony

    Passion and pain, the outcry of despair, The pang of the unattainable desire, And youth’s delight in pleasures that expire, And sweet high dreamings of the good and fair Clashing in swift soul-storm, through which no prayer Uplifted stays the destined death-stroke dire. Then through a...

  • The Faun

    A Fragment I WILL go out to grass with that old King, For I am weary of clothes and cooks. I long to lie along the banks of brooks, And watch the boughs above me sway and swing. Come, I will pluck off custom’s livery, Nor longer be a lackey to old Time, Time shall serve me, and at my feet shall...

  • Love in the Winds

    When I am standing on a mountain crest, Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray; My heart bounds with the horses of the sea, And plunges in the wild ride of the night, Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the...

  • From "Taliesin: a Masque"

    Voices of Unseen Spirits HERE falls no light of sun nor stars; No stir nor striving here intrudes; No moan nor merry-making mars The quiet of these solitudes. Submerged in sleep, the passive soul Is one with all the things that seem; Night blurs in one confusëd whole Alike the dreamer...