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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TEMPTATION, by VLADISLAV FELITZIANOVICH KHODASEVICH Poet's Biography First Line: Enough! For beauty is not needed Last Line: "what knowest thou where heaven gleams?" | |||
"ENOUGH! for beauty is not needed. The sordid world's not worth a song. Grow dim, O Tasso's lamp! Unheeded Lie, Homer, friend for centuries long! "And revolution is not needed; Its armies dissipate and fade. It has one crown for which it pleaded, It has one liberty -- to trade. "In vain on public squares stands preaching Harmony's hungry son to men; Unwelcome is his gospel-teaching To the successful citizen. "Content, and recking proudly of it, On heaps where blossoming banners stand, The scabs of drudgery and profit He scratches with an itching hand. "-- Be off! Don't trouble me. I'm selling. -- No bourgeois, and no farmer, I. -- I hide my profits daily swelling -- In flaming cap of liberty. "Soul, here confined and sickly grieving, On heaps of this dishonoured lot, Look up to heaven for relieving, But near, upon the earth, look not!" So speaks the wicked Heart in trying To tempt the Soul's unsullied dreams. "O earthly one," says Soul, replying: "What knowest thou where heaven gleams?" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: EPILOGUE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME by ROBERT HERRICK THE COUNTY OF MAYO by THOMAS LAVELLE THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD by THEODORE O'HARA COLUMBUS DYING [MAY 20, 1506] by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR DIRGE FOR THE LATE JAMES CURRIE, M.D., OF LIVERPOOL by LUCY AIKEN EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 27. THE POWER OF ELOQUENCE IN LOVE by PHILIP AYRES |
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