Explore "Magdalen to her Poet" by Olive Tilford Dargan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Take back thy song; or let me hear what thou / Heardst anciently from me, / The woman; now / This wassail drift on boughless shores; / Once lyre-veined leading thee / To singing doors / Out of the coiling dark; / Teaching thee hark / Earth's virgin candours, blossomed wonderings, / And sanctities inaudible till strings / Of lyric gentleness / Wooed Heaven to confess / Her world, and I was near, / The earliest listener, / Who of my bosom then made Arcady, / And drew thy forest feet to Castaly.
Take back thy pity. Is it not from man / Who made that world his own? / As barbican / Sends out its darts, and after flings / A dole of myrrh where groan / Is loudest, sings / Thy grace to me, me thus / Unbeauteous / By thee. Uneased thy covenanted bit / From Levite ark till now. Thy judges sit, / Gods ruminant, to keep / Earth pure for dulcet sleep / Of babe and mother. Ay, / Drones yet the lulling lie, / Whilst I, Disease uncinctured, darkly mate / With guard and sentry of thy hierarchate.