Author: Hamlet (---.dsl.snantx.swbell.net)
Date: 10-16-05 06:44
My gaze on Beatrice, hers on Heaven,
In less time than an arrow strikes the mark,
Flies through the air, loosed from its catch, I found
myself in some place where a wondrous thing.
Absorbed all of my mind, and then my lady,
From whom I could not keep my thirst to know,
turned toward me as joyful as her beauty:
Direct your mind and gratitude, she said,
To God, who raised us up to His first star.
-Dante, The Divine Comedy: ParadiseApril is the cruellest month.
T. S. Eliot
CXXXIII
How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
--William Shakespeare
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