George Henry Boker Poems

I cannot liken thee to any flower,
As they of old, the master poets, chose
From fancy's bed, to meetly emblem those
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Cast on the lily's cheek the rose's glow,
And while the world with morning dew is wet,
Inhale the fragrance of the violet,
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White as this paper was my lady's mind
Ere with my bold and desecrating hand
I scrawled its face with characters that stand
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Like to an aged poet who reviews
An early volume, once his secret pride,
With a distaste that scarcely can abide
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If beauty is not an immortal thing,
And that fair casket, thy transcendent form,
Never again to throbbing life shall warm,
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CCXL

So long have paused the strings across my lute,
So many streams of bitterness have
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There is no greater sorrow, Dante said,
Than to remember happy days in grief.
But to remember? Is this sorrow chief?
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Sweet sorceress, dear foe to every gift
God stored for action in my languid frame--
Gifts that, employed, might win a smile from fame,
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O let me break my slavehood! Link by link
I rend my gyves; not calmly, but with cries
Of anguish, bloody hands and streaming eyes--
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I do not merit it that thou shouldst stir
A step beyond the coldness of the shrine
My heart has built thee, nor one look incline
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