In Vain

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Title:     In Vain
Author: Rachel Annand Taylor [More Titles by Taylor]

I said: "Confession's bitter cautery
Shall fierily search my soul, destroy her ill."
Natheless, the wounded wasting malady
Is her unexorcised sad sovran still.
Oh! that alembic fever of interwed
Desire and dream and sense, rapture and rue!
As soon as my sincerest words are said
And heard they seem apostate and untrue.
For only speech more richly dubious
Than shoaling water, or a ringdove's breast,
Than lighted incense more miraculous
With fumes of strange remembrance, could attest
The morbid beauty of that wasting ill
Whereof I am the cureless lover still.

[The end]
Rachel Annand Taylor's poem: In Vain

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