She felt like bright metal weighted down by dark, impure magnetism. He was the dross, people were the dross. If she could but get away to the clean free moonlight.
Author and Text
How they will rage and fume to think that they have lost the bliss of heaven for the dross of earth, for a few pieces of metal, for vain honours, for bodily comforts, for a tingling of the nerves. They will repent indeed: and this is the second sting of the worm of conscience, a late and fruitless sorrow for sins committed.
Author and Text
An alkahest, that makes gold metal
Author and Text
Of dross, his mind is–where one petal
Of one wild-rose will all outweigh
The piled-up facts of everyday–
Where commonplaces, there that settle,
Are changed to things of heavenly ray.
Love is the sacrament of life; it sets
Author and Text
Virtue where virtue was not; cleanses men
Of all the vile pollutions of this world;
It is the fire which purges gold from dross,
It is the fan which winnows wheat from chaff,
It is the spring which in some wintry soil
Makes innocence to blossom like a rose.
I wonder what those lovers mean, who say,
They ‘ave giv’en their hearts away.
Some good kind lover tell me how;
For mine is but a torment to me now.If so it be one place both hearts contain,
For what do they complain?
What courtesy can Love do more,
Than to join hearts, that parted were before?Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come
Into the self same room;
Twill tear and blow up all within,
Like a granado shot into a magazine.Then shall Love keep the ashes, and torn parts
Of both our broken hearts:
Shall out of both one new one make,
From hers, th’ allay; from mine, the metal take.For of her heart he from the flames will find
Author and Texts
But little left behind:
Mine only will remain entire;
No dross was there, to perish in the fire.
I boast a better purchase, and can show
Author and Texts
The glories of a soul that’s simply true.
But grant some richer planet at my birth
Had spied me out, and measur’d so much earth
Or gold unto my share: I should have been
Slave to these lower elements, and seen
My high-born soul flag with their dross, and lie
A pris’ner to base mud, and alchemy.
I should perhaps eat orphans, and suck up
A dozen distress’d widows in one cup;
Nay, further, I should by that lawful stealth,
Damn’d usury, undo the commonwealth;
Or patent it in soap, and coals, and so
Have the smiths curse me, and my laundress too;
Why tell you me of moderation?
Author and Texts
The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong
As that which causeth it. How can I moderate it?
If I could temporize with my affections
Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
The like allayment could I give my grief.
My love admits no qualifying dross;
No more my grief, in such a precious loss.