by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.
Soft as palely loitering spring she lingers,
sitting knock-kneed, mild; as the florid season,
so she too, unmindful, accepts caresses,
bending as slightly.
Lips unguarded, full, as if seeking, sought for,
brush expectant day, its small breathing quickened;
she is somewhere distanter: there a strangely
crystalline rapture.
Hair goes wisps as boldly as love is taken,
falls there all about her a chestnut laughter;
rayon gardens bloom there, surprise among them,
startled eyes question.
Who can know the mastery seizes her? What
sight, what strophe, may quicken the hand to wisdom
such as Anaktoria's knows: half-lifted,
suddenly foreign?
Gilbert Wesley Purdy has published poetry, prose and translation in many journals, paper and electronic, including: Jacket Magazine, Poetry International (San Diego State University), The Georgia Review (University of Georgia), Grand Street, SLANT (University of Central Arkansas), Consciousness Literature and the Arts (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), Orbis (UK), Eclectica, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Links to his work online and to a selected bibliography of his work in paper venues appear at his Hyperlinked Online Bibliography. This poem first appeared in The Monadnock Review.
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