Sonnet 04

If I was drawn here from a distant place,
‘Twas not to pray nor hear our friend’s address,
But, gazing once more on your winsome face,
To worship there Ideal Loveliness.
On that pure shrine that has too long ignored
The gifts that once I brought so frequently
I lay this votive offering, to record
How sweet your quiet beauty seemed to me.
Enchanting girl, my faith is not a thing
By futile prayers and vapid psalm-singing
To vent in crowded nave and public pew.
My creed is simple: that the world is fair,
And beauty the best thing to worship there,
And I confess it by adoring you.

Similar poems:

Fragments In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules, I too have been a suitor. […]...

El Extraviado Over the radiant ridges borne out on the offshore wind, I have sailed as a butterfly sails whose priming wings […]...

Maktoob A shell surprised our post one day And killed a comrade at my side. My heart was sick to see […]...

Broceliande Broceliande! in the perilous beauty of silence and menacing shade, Thou art set on the shores of the sea down […]...

All That’s Not Love All that’s not love is the dearth of my days, The leaves of the volume with rubric unwrit, The temple […]...

I Have A Rendezvous With Death I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill […]...

Sonnet 01 Sidney, in whom the heyday of romance Came to its precious and most perfect flower, Whether you tourneyed with victorious […]...

Sonnet 03 Why should you be astonished that my heart, Plunged for so long in darkness and in dearth, Should be revived […]...

A Message to America You have the grit and the guts, I know; You are ready to answer blow for blow You are virile, […]...

La Nue Oft when sweet music undulated round, Like the full moon out of a perfumed sea Thine image from the waves […]...

Antinous Stretched on a sunny bank he lay at rest, Ferns at his elbow, lilies round his knees, With sweet flesh […]...

Sonnet XV Above the ruin of God’s holy place, Where man-forsaken lay the bleeding rood, Whose hands, when men had craved substantial […]...

The Need to Love The need to love that all the stars obey Entered my heart and banished all beside. Bare were the gardens […]...

Kyrenaikos Lay me where soft Cyrene rambles down In grove and garden to the sapphire sea; Twine yellow roses for the […]...

The Torture of Cuauhtemoc Their strength had fed on this when Death’s white arms Came sleeved in vapors and miasmal dew, Curling across the […]...

Sonnet XIII I fancied, while you stood conversing there, Superb, in every attitude a queen, Her ermine thus Boadicea bare, So moved […]...

Virginibus Puerisque I care not that one listen if he lives For aught but life’s romance, nor puts above All life’s necessities […]...

Sonnet VII To me, a pilgrim on that journey bound Whose stations Beauty’s bright examples are, As of a silken city famed […]...

The Aisne We first saw fire on the tragic slopes Where the flood-tide of France’s early gain, Big with wrecked promise and […]...

Sonnet 08 Oh, love of woman, you are known to be A passion sent to plague the hearts of men; For every […]...

Sonnet 02 Not that I always struck the proper mean Of what mankind must give for what they gain, But, when I […]...

The Nympholept There was a boy not above childish fears With steps that faltered now and straining ears, Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless […]...

Sonnet I Down the strait vistas where a city street Fades in pale dust and vaporous distances, Stained with far fumes the […]...

Juvenilia, An Ode to Natural Beauty There is a power whose inspiration fills Nature’s fair fabric, sun – and star-inwrought, Like airy dew ere any drop […]...

Rendezvous I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, […]...

Written in a Volume of the Comtesse de Noailles Be my companion under cool arcades That frame some drowsy street and dazzling square Beyond whose flowers and palm-tree promenades […]...

Bellinglise Deep in the sloping forest that surrounds The head of a green valley that I know, Spread the fair gardens […]...

Sonnet IV Up at his attic sill the South wind came And days of sun and storm but never peace. Along the […]...

On a Theme in the Greek Anthology Thy petals yet are closely curled, Rose of the world, Around their scented, golden core; Nor yet has Summer purpled […]...

The Wanderer To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves, Back of old-storied spires […]...