Explore "Lionel Johnson" by Joyce Kilmer on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(For the Rev. John J. Burke, C. S. P.)
There was a murkier tinge in London's air / As if the honest fog blushed black for shame. / Fools sang of sin, for other fools' acclaim, / And Milton's wreath was tossed to Baudelaire. / The flowers of evil blossomed everywhere, / But in their midst a radiant lily came, / Candescent, pure, a cup of living flame, / Bloomed for a day, and left the earth more fair.
And was it Charles, thy "fair and fatal King," / Who bade thee welcome to the lovely land? / Or did Lord David cease to harp and sing / To take in his thine emulative hand? / Or did Our Lady's smile shine forth, to bring / Her lyric Knight within her choir to stand?