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The Kissed Mouth
3. The Apparition of Jane Burden Morris
a.The Queen of Beauty/The Kissed Mouth
[Rossetti and Jane]

R:

And now, the second
She comes, she comes
Sweet Jane, who is flown from me
Spurned me, rejected me
        After so long
        After so much....
Returned to her hearth,
Returned to her home,
To her husband and her children,
While I die alone.

~~~

The Queen of Beauty!
        Absolute eyes
        And supple, motive hands
        Their gestures emulate the turning spheres

The Queen of Beauty!
        The pulse of hearts
        When breast to breast we lay
        The tongue the teeth the lips the cheek the throat

J:

A blue silk dress
        A roseleaf, reverie
La Belle Iseult you sought
        And it was me
Attending the Beloved,
        Pandora, Proserpine
Astarte Syriaca
        Your heart was mine

In your painted visions
        I assumed my place
And even Dante’s lady
        Bore my face
Bound each to another
        Near neighbors to death
We fell still together
        And shared one breath

R:

A mouth that has been kissed lives on in freshness
        Preserves its beauty
        Grows ever new

A mouth that has been kissed is blooming always
        In dream or memory
        To be kissed again

J:

The mouth, when first it’s kissed, when first it rises
        The moon at twilight
        A lamp at dusk

The kissed mouth needs no words to give it meaning
        No words but motion
        To spin its tale

R:

The kissed mouth is the speaking mouth’s companion
        It fares forth boldly
        
Where speech can not

J:

In time the speaking mouth subsides to silence
        And now that silence
        
Is only silence

 

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Notes and Sources   

a fool in the forest

  • The personal & cultural web journal of George M. Wallace, an attorney practicing in Pasadena, California.
    An Index of Enthusiasms.

Epigraphs

  • A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the
        forest,
    A motley fool; a miserable world!
    As I do live by food, I met a fool
    Who laid him down and bask'd him
        in the sun,
    And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good
        terms,
    In good set terms and yet a motley
        fool.

    As You Like It,
    Act II, Scene 7


    L'homme y passe à travers des
        forêts de symboles
    Qui l'observent avec des regards
        familiers.

    Les Fleurs du Mal,
    “Correspondances”


    [T]here is almost no subject-matter, and what little one can disentangle is foolish....
    One would call the style verbose, except that by definition verbosity is the use of words in excess of the occasion, and there seems to be no occasion.

    Yvor Winters,
    Forms of Discovery, Ch. 7

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