Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Beauty, as it wended by,
Seared me, but I cannot die.

Like a singed moth, that beats with wings
Too weak for any flightier things,
About a mansion's dusty floor,
Thus pettily must I adore—
Like ten-foot-altar-candled boys
At play with spiritual toys,
And not like men, that take the flow
Of God's light on a lifted brow,
By living deep in other eyes,
Desiring far, and with the skies
Triumphantly proceeding on
From eve to eve, and dawn to dawn.
They loved her not, they tell me, so,
Kings their Deirdre long ago,
Nor was for such a slight embrace
The wrath on Agamemnon's face,
Nor so, before his song was sung,
Joy burned in Jonathan the young.
(Ronsard perhaps, and, like him, we
Must bind up love with poetry.)

I see those pale dissentient lips,
Those delicate vain hands and hips,
And comely carven out of stone,
The chalices of flesh and bone:
And seeing, wonder why such joy
Is set by gods for a decoy,
And why, deceiving us, they make
Hounds of love to overtake
The fragile heart, why find it sweet
To fashion such a counterfeit.

The idol sits delightful-faced
But lets me come and go ungraced,
And polite and courtly locks
The jewel in a padded box.
Sweet are the words I hear replied,
Perfectly spoken, out of pride,
To what I speak of good or ill;
But unattained, intangible,
Within the fence of kindness lies
The wealthy field of Paradise.
It is but fit for feet divine;
Nor others' tread is there, nor mine;
But shall I swing without the fane
A censer praying on in vain,
From Lenten night to Easter sun,
With clouds of dim devotion?

No, to the comfortable air,
Undistraught by lovers' care,
I go, half-discontented yet,
With a hate I shall not quite forget.
Friends, that I go, less rich by far
Than other treasure-seekers are,
You would not wonder, if you knew
The charm I am indited to,
Or wondering, confess of me,
'Ce n'était point la jalousie.'