from The Growth of Love
My lady is not learned in many books,
Nor hath much love for grave discourses strung
With gaudy similes, for she is young,
And full of merry pranks and laughing looks.
But yet her heart hath many tender nooks
Of fervour and sweet charity; her tongue,
For all its laughter, yet is often wrung
With soft compassion for life's painful crooks.
I love my lady for her lovely face,
And for her mouth, and for her eyes, and hair;
More still I love her for her laughing grace,
And for her wayward ways, and changeful air;
But most of all love gaineth ground apace,
Because my lady's heart is pure and fair.
~~
Archibald Lampman (1861-1899), 1885
from At the Long Sault, and other new poems, 1943
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]
Archibald Lampman biography
Nor hath much love for grave discourses strung
With gaudy similes, for she is young,
And full of merry pranks and laughing looks.
But yet her heart hath many tender nooks
Of fervour and sweet charity; her tongue,
For all its laughter, yet is often wrung
With soft compassion for life's painful crooks.
I love my lady for her lovely face,
And for her mouth, and for her eyes, and hair;
More still I love her for her laughing grace,
And for her wayward ways, and changeful air;
But most of all love gaineth ground apace,
Because my lady's heart is pure and fair.
~~
Archibald Lampman (1861-1899), 1885
from At the Long Sault, and other new poems, 1943
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]
Archibald Lampman biography
A thought upon reading: Young females, it is true, are giddy, giggly, can be, my recollection. Petrarchan sonnet: 14 lines, 2 stanzas, 8 then 6 lines. Rhyme scheme: ABBAABBA then CDCDCD. Evey lines iambic pentameter/10 syllables, all except for the 3rd line, 8 syllables.
ReplyDeleteL8 crooks: bends, curves
ReplyDeleteMost of all, I'm glad you liked the poem; your evaluation, as a poet as well as a reader, is always worth reading.
ReplyDeleteI hate getting picky after that, but I have to say that Lampman's L3 is perfect IP:
with GAUD/y SIM/iLES / for SHE is YOUNG.
You may have misread "similes" as "smiles."