Explore "Ylladmar" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Her hair was, oh, so dense a blur / Of darkness, midnight envied her; / And stars grew dimmer in the skies / To see the glory of her eyes; / And all the summer rain of light / That showered from the moon at night / Fell o'er her features as the gloom / Of twilight o'er a lily-bloom.
The crimson fruitage of her lips / Was ripe and lush with sweeter wine / Than burgundy or muscadine / Or vintage that the burgher sips / In some old garden on the Rhine: / And I to taste of it could well / Believe my heart a crucible / Of molten love -- and I could feel / The drunken soul within me reel / And rock and stagger till it fell.
And do you wonder that I bowed / Before her splendor as a cloud / Of storm the golden-sandaled sun / Had set his conquering foot upon?
And did she will it, I could lie / In writhing rapture down and die / A death so full of precious pain / I'd waken up to die again.