A Virginal



No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.
I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,
For my surrounding air hath a new lightness;
Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly
And left me cloaked as with a gauze of aether;
As with sweet leaves; as with subtle clearness.
Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness
To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.
No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour,
Soft as spring wind that's come from birchen bowers.
Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,
As winter's wound with her sleight hand she staunches,
Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour:
As white their bark, so white this lady's hours.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 04, 2023

40 sec read
304

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBACBBCCDEBCD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 678
Words 132
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

Ezra Pound

 · 1885 · Hailey, Idaho

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic of the early modernist movement. more…

All Ezra Pound poems | Ezra Pound Books

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