“What’s the use on hoary curls / Of the bays undying, / If we may not kiss the girls…?”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday:

“Some for a little while do love, and some for long,” Countee Cullen

Some for a little while do love, and some for long;
And some rare few forever and for aye;
Some for the measure of a poet’s song,
And some the ribbon width of a summer’s day.
Some on a golden crucifix do swear,
And some in blood to plight a fickle troth;
Some struck divinely mad may only stare,
And out of silence weave an iron oath.

So many ways love has none may appear
The bitter best, and none the sweetest worst;
Strange food the hungry have been known to bear,
And brackish water slakes an utter thirst.
It is a rare and tantalizing fruit
Our hands reach for, but nothing absolute.


Cullen (1903-1946) was a poet, novelist, and playwright of the Harlem Renaissance. This is from his 1935 collection The Medea and Some Other Poems, which is headlined by a translation of Euripedes.

---L.

Subject quote from Lauriger Horatius, Anonymous tr. John Addington Symonds (original).

Comments

[puddleshark]

Oh, I like that. Thank you.

[larryhammer]

Certainly!