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Best Famous Opposites Poems

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Written by Marianne Moore | Create an image from this poem

Marriage

 This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in,
requiring public promises
of one's intention
to fulfill a private obligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to avoid!
Psychology which explains everything
explains nothing
and we are still in doubt.
Eve: beautiful woman --
I have seen her
when she was so handsome
she gave me a start,
able to write simultaneously
in three languages --
English, German and French
and talk in the meantime;
equally positive in demanding a commotion
and in stipulating quiet:
"I should like to be alone;"
to which the visitor replies,
"I should like to be alone;
why not be alone together?"
Below the incandescent stars
below the incandescent fruit,
the strange experience of beauty;
its existence is too much;
it tears one to pieces
and each fresh wave of consciousness
is poison.
"See her, see her in this common world,"
the central flaw
in that first crystal-fine experiment,
this amalgamation which can never be more
than an interesting possibility,
describing it
as "that strange paradise
unlike flesh, gold, or stately buildings,
the choicest piece of my life:
the heart rising
in its estate of peace
as a boat rises
with the rising of the water;"
constrained in speaking of the serpent --
that shed snakeskin in the history of politeness
not to be returned to again --
that invaluable accident
exonerating Adam.
And he has beauty also;
it's distressing -- the O thou
to whom, from whom,
without whom nothing -- Adam;
"something feline,
something colubrine" -- how true!
a crouching mythological monster
in that Persian miniature of emerald mines,
raw silk -- ivory white, snow white,
oyster white and six others --
that paddock full of leopards and giraffes --
long lemonyellow bodies
sown with trapezoids of blue.
Alive with words,
vibrating like a cymbal
touched before it has been struck,
he has prophesied correctly --
the industrious waterfall,
"the speedy stream
which violently bears all before it,
at one time silent as the air
and now as powerful as the wind."
"Treading chasms 
on the uncertain footing of a spear,"
forgetting that there is in woman
a quality of mind
which is an instinctive manifestation
is unsafe,
he goes on speaking
in a formal, customary strain
of "past states," the present state,
seals, promises, 
the evil one suffered,
the good one enjoys,
hell, heaven,
everything convenient
to promote one's joy."
There is in him a state of mind
by force of which,
perceiving what it was not
intended that he should,
"he experiences a solemn joy
in seeing that he has become an idol."
Plagued by the nightingale
in the new leaves,
with its silence --
not its silence but its silences,
he says of it:
"It clothes me with a shirt of fire."
"He dares not clap his hands
to make it go on
lest it should fly off;
if he does nothing, it will sleep;
if he cries out, it will not understand."
Unnerved by the nightingale
and dazzled by the apple,
impelled by "the illusion of a fire
effectual to extinguish fire,"
compared with which
the shining of the earth
is but deformity -- a fire
"as high as deep as bright as broad
as long as life itself,"
he stumbles over marriage,
"a very trivial object indeed"
to have destroyed the attitude
in which he stood --
the ease of the philosopher
unfathered by a woman.
Unhelpful Hymen!
"a kind of overgrown cupid"
reduced to insignificance
by the mechanical advertising
parading as involuntary comment,
by that experiment of Adam's
with ways out but no way in --
the ritual of marriage,
augmenting all its lavishness;
its fiddle-head ferns,
lotus flowers, opuntias, white dromedaries,
its hippopotamus --
nose and mouth combined
in one magnificent hopper,
"the crested screamer --
that huge bird almost a lizard,"
its snake and the potent apple.
He tells us
that "for love
that will gaze an eagle blind,
that is like a Hercules
climbing the trees
in the garden of the Hesperides,
from forty-five to seventy
is the best age,"
commending it
as a fine art, as an experiment,
a duty or as merely recreation.
One must not call him ruffian
nor friction a calamity --
the fight to be affectionate:
"no truth can be fully known
until it has been tried
by the tooth of disputation."
The blue panther with black eyes,
the basalt panther with blue eyes,
entirely graceful --
one must give them the path --
the black obsidian Diana
who "darkeneth her countenance
as a bear doth,
causing her husband to sigh,"
the spiked hand
that has an affection for one
and proves it to the bone,
impatient to assure you
that impatience is the mark of independence
not of bondage.
"Married people often look that way" --
"seldom and cold, up and down,
mixed and malarial
with a good day and bad."
"When do we feed?"
We occidentals are so unemotional,
we quarrel as we feed;
one's self is quite lost,
the irony preserved
in "the Ahasuerus t?te ? t?te banquet"
with its "good monster, lead the way,"
with little laughter
and munificence of humor
in that quixotic atmosphere of frankness
in which "Four o'clock does not exist
but at five o'clock
the ladies in their imperious humility
are ready to receive you";
in which experience attests
that men have power
and sometimes one is made to feel it.
He says, "what monarch would not blush
to have a wife
with hair like a shaving-brush?
The fact of woman
is not `the sound of the flute
but every poison.'"
She says, "`Men are monopolists
of stars, garters, buttons
and other shining baubles' --
unfit to be the guardians
of another person's happiness."
He says, "These mummies
must be handled carefully --
`the crumbs from a lion's meal,
a couple of shins and the bit of an ear';
turn to the letter M
and you will find
that `a wife is a coffin,'
that severe object
with the pleasing geometry
stipulating space and not people,
refusing to be buried
and uniquely disappointing,
revengefully wrought in the attitude
of an adoring child
to a distinguished parent."
She says, "This butterfly,
this waterfly, this nomad
that has `proposed
to settle on my hand for life.' --
What can one do with it?
There must have been more time
in Shakespeare's day
to sit and watch a play.
You know so many artists are fools."
He says, "You know so many fools
who are not artists."
The fact forgot
that "some have merely rights
while some have obligations,"
he loves himself so much,
he can permit himself
no rival in that love.
She loves herself so much,
she cannot see herself enough --
a statuette of ivory on ivory,
the logical last touch
to an expansive splendor
earned as wages for work done:
one is not rich but poor
when one can always seem so right.
What can one do for them --
these savages
condemned to disaffect
all those who are not visionaries
alert to undertake the silly task
of making people noble?
This model of petrine fidelity
who "leaves her peaceful husband
only because she has seen enough of him" --
that orator reminding you,
"I am yours to command."
"Everything to do with love is mystery;
it is more than a day's work
to investigate this science."
One sees that it is rare --
that striking grasp of opposites
opposed each to the other, not to unity,
which in cycloid inclusiveness
has dwarfed the demonstration
of Columbus with the egg --
a triumph of simplicity --
that charitive Euroclydon
of frightening disinterestedness
which the world hates,
admitting:

"I am such a cow,
if I had a sorrow,
I should feel it a long time;
I am not one of those
who have a great sorrow
in the morning
and a great joy at noon;"
which says: "I have encountered it
among those unpretentious
proteg?s of wisdom,
where seeming to parade
as the debater and the Roman,
the statesmanship
of an archaic Daniel Webster
persists to their simplicity of temper
as the essence of the matter:

`Liberty and union
now and forever;'

the book on the writing-table;
the hand in the breast-pocket."


Written by Sylvia Plath | Create an image from this poem

Lesbos

 Viciousness in the kitchen!
The potatoes hiss.
It is all Hollywood, windowless,
The fluorescent light wincing on and off like a terrible migraine,
Coy paper strips for doors --
Stage curtains, a widow's frizz.
And I, love, am a pathological liar,
And my child -- look at her, face down on the floor,
Little unstrung puppet, kicking to disappear --
Why she is schizophrenic,
Her face is red and white, a panic,
You have stuck her kittens outside your window
In a sort of cement well
Where they crap and puke and cry and she can't hear.
You say you can't stand her,
The bastard's a girl.
You who have blown your tubes like a bad radio
Clear of voices and history, the staticky
Noise of the new.
You say I should drown the kittens. Their smell!
You say I should drown my girl.
She'll cut her throat at ten if she's mad at two.
The baby smiles, fat snail,
From the polished lozenges of orange linoleum.
You could eat him. He's a boy.
You say your husband is just no good to you.
His Jew-Mama guards his sweet sex like a pearl.
You have one baby, I have two.
I should sit on a rock off Cornwall and comb my hair.
I should wear tiger pants, I should have an affair.
We should meet in another life, we should meet in air,
Me and you.

Meanwhile there's a stink of fat and baby crap.
I'm doped and thick from my last sleeping pill.
The smog of cooking, the smog of hell
Floats our heads, two venemous opposites,
Our bones, our hair.
I call you Orphan, orphan. You are ill.
The sun gives you ulcers, the wind gives you T.B.
Once you were beautiful.
In New York, in Hollywood, the men said: 'Through?
Gee baby, you are rare.'
You acted, acted for the thrill.
The impotent husband slumps out for a coffee.
I try to keep him in,
An old pole for the lightning,
The acid baths, the skyfuls off of you.
He lumps it down the plastic cobbled hill,
Flogged trolley. The sparks are blue.
The blue sparks spill,
Splitting like quartz into a million bits.

O jewel! O valuable!
That night the moon
Dragged its blood bag, sick
Animal
Up over the harbor lights.
And then grew normal,
Hard and apart and white.
The scale-sheen on the sand scared me to death.
We kept picking up handfuls, loving it,
Working it like dough, a mulatto body,
The silk grits.
A dog picked up your doggy husband. He went on.

Now I am silent, hate
Up to my neck,
Thick, thick.
I do not speak.
I am packing the hard potatoes like good clothes,
I am packing the babies,
I am packing the sick cats.
O vase of acid,
It is love you are full of. You know who you hate.
He is hugging his ball and chain down by the gate
That opens to the sea
Where it drives in, white and black,
Then spews it back.
Every day you fill him with soul-stuff, like a pitcher.
You are so exhausted.
Your voice my ear-ring,
Flapping and sucking, blood-loving bat.
That is that. That is that.
You peer from the door,
Sad hag. 'Every woman's a whore.
I can't communicate.'

I see your cute décor
Close on you like the fist of a baby
Or an anemone, that sea
Sweetheart, that kleptomaniac.
I am still raw.
I say I may be back.
You know what lies are for.

Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet.
Written by Ralph Waldo Emerson | Create an image from this poem

Dæmonic Love

 Man was made of social earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured,
Next his heart the fireside band
Of mother, father, sister, stand;
Names from awful childhood heard,
Throbs of a wild religion stirred,
Their good was heaven, their harm was vice,
Till Beauty came to snap all ties,
The maid, abolishing the past,
With lotus-wine obliterates
Dear memory's stone-incarved traits,
And by herself supplants alone
Friends year by year more inly known.
When her calm eyes opened bright,
All were foreign in their light.
It was ever the self-same tale,
The old experience will not fail,—
Only two in the garden walked,
And with snake and seraph talked.

But God said;
I will have a purer gift,
There is smoke in the flame;
New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift,
And love without a name.
Fond children, ye desire
To please each other well;
Another round, a higher,
Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair,
And selfish preference forbear;
And in right deserving,
And without a swerving
Each from your proper state,
Weave roses for your mate.

Deep, deep are loving eyes,
Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet,
And the point is Paradise
Where their glances meet:
Their reach shall yet be more profound,
And a vision without bound:
The axis of those eyes sun-clear
Be the axis of the sphere;
Then shall the lights ye pour amain
Go without check or intervals,
Through from the empyrean walls,
Unto the same again.

Close, close to men,
Like undulating layer of air,
Right above their heads,
The potent plain of Dæmons spreads.
Stands to each human soul its own,
For watch, and ward, and furtherance
In the snares of nature's dance;
And the lustre and the grace
Which fascinate each human heart,
Beaming from another part,
Translucent through the mortal covers,
Is the Dæmon's form and face.
To and fro the Genius hies,
A gleam which plays and hovers
Over the maiden's head,
And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes.

Unknown, — albeit lying near, —
To men the path to the Dæmon sphere,
And they that swiftly come and go,
Leave no track on the heavenly snow.
Sometimes the airy synod bends,
And the mighty choir descends,
And the brains of men thenceforth,
In crowded and in still resorts,
Teem with unwonted thoughts.
As when a shower of meteors
Cross the orbit of the earth,
And, lit by fringent air,
Blaze near and far.
Mortals deem the planets bright
Have slipped their sacred bars,
And the lone seaman all the night
Sails astonished amid stars.

Beauty of a richer vein,
Graces of a subtler strain,
Unto men these moon-men lend,
And our shrinking sky extend.
So is man's narrow path
By strength and terror skirted,
Also (from the song the wrath
Of the Genii be averted!
The Muse the truth uncolored speaking),
The Dæmons are self-seeking;
Their fierce and limitary will
Draws men to their likeness still.

The erring painter made Love blind,
Highest Love who shines on all;
Him radiant, sharpest-sighted god
None can bewilder;
Whose eyes pierce
The Universe,
Path-finder, road-builder,
Mediator, royal giver,
Rightly-seeing, rightly-seen,
Of joyful and transparent mien.
'Tis a sparkle passing
From each to each, from me to thee,
Perpetually,
Sharing all, daring all,
Levelling, misplacing
Each obstruction, it unites
Equals remote, and seeming opposites.
And ever and forever Love
Delights to build a road;
Unheeded Danger near him strides,
Love laughs, and on a lion rides.
But Cupid wears another face
Born into Dæmons less divine,
His roses bleach apace,
His nectar smacks of wine.
The Dæmon ever builds a wall,
Himself incloses and includes,
Solitude in solitudes:
In like sort his love doth fall.
He is an oligarch,
He prizes wonder, fame, and mark,
He loveth crowns,
He scorneth drones;
He doth elect
The beautiful and fortunate,
And the sons of intellect,
And the souls of ample fate,
Who the Future's gates unbar,
Minions of the Morning Star.
In his prowess he exults,
And the multitude insults.
His impatient looks devour
Oft the humble and the poor,
And, seeing his eye glare,
They drop their few pale flowers
Gathered with hope to please
Along the mountain towers,
Lose courage, and despair.
He will never be gainsaid,
Pitiless, will not be stayed.
His hot tyranny
Burns up every other tie;
Therefore comes an hour from Jove
Which his ruthless will defies,
And the dogs of Fate unties.
Shiver the palaces of glass,
Shrivel the rainbow-colored walls
Where in bright art each god and sibyl dwelt
Secure as in the Zodiack's belt;
And the galleries and halls
Wherein every Siren sung,
Like a meteor pass.
For this fortune wanted root
In the core of God's abysm,
Was a weed of self and schism:
And ever the Dæmonic Love
Is the ancestor of wars,
And the parent of remorse.
Written by John Matthew | Create an image from this poem

To an Online Friend

 May be the whole thing was a dream,
Pinched myself awake this morn,
To check if you are there, virtually,
And felt your sudden absence online!

Be sure you will always exist,
In a special place in my heart,
Your smile in pixels is so sweet,
But, no, you are too good to be true!

Where are you? Do you exist?
Do you still inhabit Internet protocols?
And virtual chats and emoticons
That in joyous moments I watched.

Now that you are gone; are you
Among your charmed admirers?
I wish you well, I will miss you,
May you be ever happy and smiling!

Distances and togetherness,
Opposites, can’t networks cross,
I could never bridge the distances
Of your sweet kindness.

Someday, if you feel betrayed,
And, as weepy as a monsoon cloud,
Remember this friend who still cares,
And felt fulfilled by your brief warmth.
Written by Katherine Mansfield | Create an image from this poem

Opposites

 The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child
Walked out into the street
And splashed in all the pubbles till
She had such shocking feet

The Patent-Leather-Slipper-Child
Stayed quietly in the house
And sat upon the fender stool
As still as any mouse.

The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child
Her hands were black as ink;
She would come running through the house
And begging for a drink.

The Patent-Leather-Slipper-Child
Her hands were white as snow;
She did not like to play around,
She only liked to sew.

The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child
Lost hair ribbons galore;
She dropped them on the garden walks,
She dropped them on the floor.

The Patent-Leather-Slipper-Child
O thoughtful little girl!
She liked to walk quite soberly,
It kept her hair in curl.

The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child
When she was glad or proud
Just flung her arms round Mother's neck
And kissed her very loud.

The Patent-Leather-Slipper-Child
Was shocked at such a sight,
She only offered you her cheek
At morning and at night.

O Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child
Your happy laughing face
Does like a scented Summer rose
Make sweet the dullest place.

O Patent-Leather-Slipper-Child
My dear, I'm well content
To have my daughter in my arms,
And not an ornament.


Written by Francois Villon | Create an image from this poem

The Debate Between Villon And His Heart

 Who's that I hear?—It's me—Who?—Your heart
Hanging on by the thinnest thread
I lose all my strength, substance, and fluid
When I see you withdrawn this way all alone
Like a whipped cur sulking in the corner
Is it due to your mad hedonism?—
What's it to you?—I have to suffer for it—
Leave me alone—Why?—I'll think about it—
When will you do that?—When I've grown up—
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it—

What's your idea?—To be a good man—
You're thirty, for a mule that's a lifetime
You call that childhood?—No—Madness
Must have hold of you—By what, the halter?—
You don't know a thing—Yes I do—What?—Flies in milk
One's white, one's black, they're opposites—
That's all?—How can I say it better?
If that doesn't suit you I'll start over—
You're lost—Well I'll go down fighting—
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it—

I get the heartache, you the injury and pain
If you were just some poor crazy idiot
I'd be able to make excuses for you
You don't even care, all's one to you, foul or fair
Either your head's harder than a rock
Or you actually prefer misery to honor
Now what do you say to that?—
Once I'm dead I'll rise above it—
God, what comfort—What wise eloquence—
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it—

Why are you miserable?—Because of my miseries
When Saturn packed my satchel I think
He put in these troubles—That's mad
You're his lord and you talk like his slave
Look what Solomon wrote in his book
"A wise man" he says "has authority
Over the planets and their influence"—
I don't believe it, as they made me I'll be—
What are you saying?—Yes that's what I think—
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it—

Want to live?—God give me the strength—
It's necessary...—What is?—To feel remorse
Lots of reading—What kind?—Read for knowledge
Leave fools alone—I'll take your advice—
Or will you forget?—I've got it fixed in mind—
Now act before things go from bad to worse
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it.
Written by Henry Lawson | Create an image from this poem

The Rhyme of the Three Greybeards

 He'd been for years in Sydney "a-acting of the goat", 
His name was Joseph Swallow, "the Great Australian Pote", 
In spite of all the stories and sketches that he wrote. 

And so his friends held meetings (Oh, narrow souls were theirs!) 
To advertise their little selves and Joseph's own affairs. 
They got up a collection for Joseph unawares. 

They looked up his connections and rivals by the score – 
The wife who had divorced him some twenty years before, 
And several politicians he'd made feel very sore. 

They sent him down to Coolan, a long train ride from here, 
Because of his grey hairs and "pomes" and painted blondes – and beer. 
(I mean to say the painted blondes would always give him beer.) 

(They loved him for his eyes were dark, and you must not condemn 
The love for opposites that mark the everlasting fem. 
Besides, he "made up" little bits of poetry for them.) 

They sent him "for his own sake", but not for that alone – 
A poet's sins are public; his sorrows are his own. 
And poets' friends have skins like hides, and mostly hearts of stone. 

They said "We'll send some money and you must use your pen. 
"So long," they said. "Adoo!" they said. "And don't come back again. 
Well, stay at least a twelve-month – we might be dead by then." 

Two greybeards down at Coolan – familiar grins they had – 
They took delivery of the goods, and also of the bad. 
(Some bread and meat had come by train – Joe Swallow was the bad.) 

They'd met him shearing west o' Bourke in some forgotten year. 
They introduced him to the town and pints of Wagga beer. 
(And Wagga pints are very good –- I wish I had some here.) 

It was the Busy Bee Hotel where no one worked at all, 
Except perhaps to cook the grub and clean the rooms and "hall". 
The usual half-wit yardman worked at each one's beck and call. 

'Twas "Drink it down!" and "Fillemup!" and "If the pub goes dry, 
There's one just two-mile down the road, and more in Gundagai" – 
Where married folk by accident get poison in the pie. 

The train comes in at eight o'clock – or half-past, I forget, 
And when the dinner table at the Busy Bee was set, 
Upon the long verandah stool the beards were wagging yet. 

They talked of where they hadn't been and what they hadn't won; 
They talked of mostly everything that's known beneath the sun. 
The things they didn't talk about were big things they had done. 

They talked of what they called to mind, and couldn't call to mind; 
They talked of men who saw too far and people who were "blind". 
Tradition says that Joe's grey beard wagged not so far behind. 

They got a horse and sulky and a riding horse as well, 
And after three o'clock they left the Busy Bee Hotel – 
In case two missuses should send from homes where they did dwell. 

No barber bides in Coolan, no baker bakes the bread; 
And every local industry, save rabbitin', is dead – 
And choppin' wood. The women do all that, be it said. 
(I'll add a line and mention that two-up goes ahead.) 

The shadows from the sinking sun were long by hill and scrub; 
The two-up school had just begun, in spite of beer and grub; 
But three greybeards were wagging yet down at the Two-mile pub. 

A full, round, placid summer moon was floating in the sky; 
They took a demijohn of beer, in case they should go dry; 
And three greybeards went wagging down the road to Gundagai. 

At Gundagai next morning (which poets call "th' morn") 
The greybeards sought a doctor – a friend of the forlorn – 
Whose name is as an angel's who sometimes blows a horn. 

And Doctor Gabriel fixed 'em up, but 'twas not in the bar. 
It wasn't rum or whisky, nor yet was it Three Star. 
'Twas mixed up in a chemist's shop, and swifter stuff by far. 

They went out to the backyard (to make my meaning plain); 
The doctor's stuff wrought mightily, but by no means in vain. 
Then they could eat their breakfasts and drink their beer again. 

They made a bond between the three, as rock against the wave, 
That they'd go to the barber's shop and each have a clean shave, 
To show the people how they looked when they were young and brave. 

They had the shave and bought three suits (and startling suits in sooth), 
And three white shirts and three red ties (to tell the awful truth), 
To show the people how they looked in their hilarious youth. 

They burnt their old clothes in the yard, and their old hats as well; 
The publican kicked up a row because they made a smell. 
They put on bran'-new "larstin'-sides" – and, oh, they looked a yell! 

Next morning, or the next (or next), from demon-haunted beds, 
And very far from feeling like what sporting men call "peds", 
The three rode back without their beards, with "boxers" on their heads! 

They tried to get Joe lodgings at the Busy Bee in vain; 
They did not take him to their homes, they took him to the train; 
They sent him back to Sydney till grey beards grew again. 

They sent him back to Sydney to keep away a year; 
Because of shaven beards and wives they thought him safer here. 
And so he cut his friends and stuck to powdered blondes and beer. 

Until the finish came at last, as 'twill to any "bloke"; 
But in Joe's case it chanced to be a paralytic stroke; 
The soft heart of a powdered blonde was, as she put it, "broke". 

She sought Joe in the hospital and took the choicest food; 
She went there very modestly and in a chastened mood, 
And timid and respectful-like – because she was no good. 

She sat the death-watch out alone on the verandah dim; 
And after all was past and gone she dried her eyes abrim, 
And sought the head-nurse timidly, and asked "May I see him?" 

And then she went back to her bar, where she'd not been for weeks, 
To practise there her barmaid's smile and mend and patch the streaks 
The only real tears for Joe had left upon her cheeks
Written by Emily Dickinson | Create an image from this poem

Tis Opposites -- entice

 'Tis Opposites -- entice --
Deformed Men -- ponder Grace --
Bright fires -- the Blanketless --
The Lost -- Day's face --

The Blind -- esteem it be
Enough Estate -- to see --
The Captive -- strangles new --
For deeming -- Beggars -- play --

To lack -- enamor Thee --
Tho' the Divinity --
Be only
Me --
Written by Francesco Petrarch | Create an image from this poem

Ballata III

BALLATA III.

Quel foco, ch' io pensai che fosse spento.

HE THOUGHT HIMSELF FREE, BUT FINDS THAT HE IS MORE THAN EVER ENTHRALLED BY LOVE.

That fire for ever which I thought at rest,Quench'd in the chill blood of my ripen'd years,Awakes new flames and torment in my breast.Its sparks were never all, from what I see,Extinct, but merely slumbering, smoulder'd o'er;Haply this second error worse may be,For, by the tears, which I, in torrents, pour,Grief, through these eyes, distill'd from my heart's core,Which holds within itself the spark and bait,Remains not as it was, but grows more great.What fire, save mine, had not been quench'd and kill'dBeneath the flood these sad eyes ceaseless shed?Struggling 'mid opposites—so Love has will'd—Now here, now there, my vain life must be led,For in so many ways his snares are spread,When most I hope him from my heart expell'dThen most of her fair face its slave I'm held.
Macgregor.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things