Poem by Richard Watson Gilder

The New Day. Part 4. 3. Likeness in Unlikeness

We are alike, and yet, O strange and sweet!
Each in the other difference discerns;
⁠      So the torn strands the maiden's finger turns
⁠      Opposing ways, when they again do meet
Clasp each in each, as flame clasps into heat;
      ⁠So when this hand on this cool bosom burns,
      ⁠Each sense is lost in the other. So two urns
      ⁠Do, side by side, the selfsame lines repeat,
But various color gives a lovelier grace,
      ⁠And each by contrast still more fine has grown.
⁠      Thus, Love, it was, I did forget thy face
As more and more to me thy soul was known;
⁠      Vague in my mind it grew till, in its place,
⁠      Another came I knew not from my own. 

1. The Celestial Passion. Prelude
2. The New Day. Part 3. 8. “Thy Lover, Love, Would Have Some Nobler Way”
3. The New Day. Part 3. 23. Song (My love grew with the growing night)
4. The Celestial Passion. Part 2. 2. Easter
5. The New Day. Part 4. 4. Song (Not from the whole wide world I chose thee)

Print

1725 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version