Quixotica
December 29th, 2010, 07:50 AM
Thought you guys might appreciate this:
[“After the death of Dean Swift, there was found among his papers
a small packet containing a single lock of hair and inscribed with
the above words.”]
“ONLY a woman’s hair!” Fling it aside!
A bubble on Life’s mighty stream:
Heed it not, man, but watch the broadening tide
Bright with the western beam.
Nay! In those words there rings from other years
The echo of a long low cry,
Where a proud spirit wrestles with its tears
In loneliest agony.
And, as I touch that lock, strange visions throng
Upon my soul with dreamy grace
Of woman’s hair, the theme of poet’s song
In every time and place.
A child’s bright tresses, by the breezes kissed
To sweet disorder as she flies,
Veiling, beneath a cloud of golden mist,
Flushed cheek and laughing eyes
Or fringing, like a shadow, raven-black,
The glory of a queen-like face
Or from a gipsy’s sunny brow tossed back
In wild and wanton grace
Or crown-like on the hoary head of Age,
Whose tale of life is well-nigh told
Or, last, in dreams I make my
pilgrimage To Bethany of old.
I see the feast- the purple and the gold;
The gathering crowd of
Pharisees, Whose scornful eyes are centred to behold
Yon woman
on her knees.
2
The stifled sob rings strangely on mine ears,
Wrung from the depth
of sin’s despair:
And still she bathes the sacred feet with tears,
And wipes them with her hair.
He scorned not then the simple loving deed
Of her, the lowest and the last;
Then scorn not thou, but use with earnest heed
This relic of the past.
The eyes that loved it once no longer wake:
So lay it by with reverent care
touching it tenderly for sorrow’s sake
It is a woman’s hair.
Feb. 17, 1862.
[“After the death of Dean Swift, there was found among his papers
a small packet containing a single lock of hair and inscribed with
the above words.”]
“ONLY a woman’s hair!” Fling it aside!
A bubble on Life’s mighty stream:
Heed it not, man, but watch the broadening tide
Bright with the western beam.
Nay! In those words there rings from other years
The echo of a long low cry,
Where a proud spirit wrestles with its tears
In loneliest agony.
And, as I touch that lock, strange visions throng
Upon my soul with dreamy grace
Of woman’s hair, the theme of poet’s song
In every time and place.
A child’s bright tresses, by the breezes kissed
To sweet disorder as she flies,
Veiling, beneath a cloud of golden mist,
Flushed cheek and laughing eyes
Or fringing, like a shadow, raven-black,
The glory of a queen-like face
Or from a gipsy’s sunny brow tossed back
In wild and wanton grace
Or crown-like on the hoary head of Age,
Whose tale of life is well-nigh told
Or, last, in dreams I make my
pilgrimage To Bethany of old.
I see the feast- the purple and the gold;
The gathering crowd of
Pharisees, Whose scornful eyes are centred to behold
Yon woman
on her knees.
2
The stifled sob rings strangely on mine ears,
Wrung from the depth
of sin’s despair:
And still she bathes the sacred feet with tears,
And wipes them with her hair.
He scorned not then the simple loving deed
Of her, the lowest and the last;
Then scorn not thou, but use with earnest heed
This relic of the past.
The eyes that loved it once no longer wake:
So lay it by with reverent care
touching it tenderly for sorrow’s sake
It is a woman’s hair.
Feb. 17, 1862.