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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE VENUS DE MILO, by PAUL ARMAND SILVESTRE Poet's Biography First Line: No human form or thing of clay e'er gave Last Line: Into the shoals of life degenerate. Alternate Author Name(s): Silvestre, Armand Subject(s): Sculpture & Sculptors; Venus De Milo; Women | |||
No human form or thing of clay e'er gave Its semblance to this marble's mystery. Too mean is Woman's pride; Earth but a slave -- This wonder came from immortality. No cruel soul of wanton lover lit This noble breast, this animated brow. These hills that on Olympian country sit Guard not a heart indifferent to its vow. As sea-girt promontory thy throat upsoars To unseen love and heaven's inviolate blue, Spurning our feeble worship from its shores Down to our spirits' desperate deeps anew. As granite warden o'er our sloughs of slime, As pharos on the beach of bitter seas, Statue, from whom the light of antique time Eternal shines across the centuries, Occult, O Thou, who guardest Beauty's door And dost in paradise thine essence keep, Blinding with fear our glance that fain would soar, Ah, he who maimed the stone where thou didst sleep, Smote Art and Love with injuries infidel! Immortal Loveliness immaculate, With thy dissevered arms creation fell Into the shoals of life degenerate. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ARISTOTLE TO PHYLLIS by JOHN HOLLANDER A WOMAN'S DELUSION by SUSAN HOWE JULIA TUTWILER STATE PRISON FOR WOMEN by ANDREW HUDGINS THE WOMEN ON CYTHAERON by ROBINSON JEFFERS TOMORROW by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD LADIES FOR DINNER, SAIPAN by KENNETH KOCH GOODBYE TO TOLERANCE by DENISE LEVERTOV IMMORTALITY by PAUL ARMAND SILVESTRE |
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