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Hair, Memory and Mourning Jewellery : The Nineteenth-century Fabrication of Death Dr Lucetta Johnson. Afar away the light that brings cold cheer Unto this wall,—one instant and no more Admitted at my distant palace-door. Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear
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Hair, Memory and Mourning Jewellery : The Nineteenth-century Fabrication of Death Dr Lucetta Johnson
Afar away the light that brings cold cheer Unto this wall,—one instant and no more Admitted at my distant palace-door. Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here. Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey That chills me: and afar, how far away, The nights that shall be from the days that were. Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign: And still some heart unto some soul doth pine, (Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to bring, Continually together murmuring,)— “Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!”
Algernon Charles Swinburne, ‘The Garden of Proserpine’ in Poems and Ballads, 1866 Pale, beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she stands Who gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands; Her languid lips are sweeter Than love’s who fears to greet her To men that mix and meet her From many times and lands She waits for each and other, She waits for all men born, Forgets the earth her mother, The life of fruits and corn; And spring and seed and swallow Take wing for her and follow Where summer song rings hollow And flowers are put to scorn. lines 49-64 and pp. 137-8.