"Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind / To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale, / Your guarded life too exquisitely frail / Against the daggers of my warring mind."
— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Harcourt Brace Company
Date
1922
Metaphor
"Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind / To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale, / Your guarded life too exquisitely frail / Against the daggers of my warring mind."
Metaphor in Context
O lonely heart so timid of approach,
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
To the faint touch of tender finger tips:
What is your word? What question would you broach?
Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind
To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale,
Your guarded life too exquisitely frail
Against the daggers of my warring mind.
There is no part of the unyielding earth,
Even bare rocks where the eagles build their
nest,
Will give us undisturbed and friendly rest.
No dewfall softens this vast belt of dearth.
(p. 70)
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
To the faint touch of tender finger tips:
What is your word? What question would you broach?
Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind
To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale,
Your guarded life too exquisitely frail
Against the daggers of my warring mind.
There is no part of the unyielding earth,
Even bare rocks where the eagles build their
nest,
Will give us undisturbed and friendly rest.
No dewfall softens this vast belt of dearth.
(p. 70)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Claude McKay, Harlem Shadows (New York: Harcourt Brace Company, 1922). <Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
11/30/2015
