MATIN

by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

OFT purple shadows cloud love-weary eyes,
Dawn's saffron glow is on the tossed white bed;
Now passion's day, warm fragrant night is fled,
A cold grey shroud on Love's bright altar lies.
From dusky corners ghostly dreams arise,
The pallid wraiths of kisses newly dead,
They float and blend above her sleeping head,
Her languid red lips quiver as she sighs.

And so, like Adam when in fear and shame
He saw God's soldiery in fierce array
And sorrowing from Eden's threshold came
To bear what pains life on his soul might lay,
I see Dawn standing with a sword of flame,
And from my Eden turn in grief away.

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