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"Corinna Confesses" by Laura Redden Searing
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? January 13, 2018 To think that my eyes once could draw your eyes down for a moment, From their l
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January 13, 2018
[Corinna Confesses](
[Laura Redden Searing](
To think that my eyes once could draw your eyes down for a moment,
From their lifting and straining up toward the opulent heightsâ
To think that my face was the face you liked best once to look on,
When fairer ones softened to pleading âneath shimmering lights!
Regret you? Not I! I am glad that your proud heart disowned me,
The while it was lying so sullenly under my feet;
Since Love was to you but a snare and a pain, and you knew not
Its height and its depth, all unsounded, and soundless, and sweet.
Too dark was the shadow that fell from your face bending over meâ
Too hot was the pant of your breath on the spring of my cheek!
I but dimly divined, yet I shrank from the warring of passions
So strong that they circled and shook me while leaving you weak.
Acknowledge! You knew not aright if you loved me or hated;
But you pushed me aside, since I hindered your seeing the heights.
They were but the cold, barren peaks up which selfish souls clamber,
And for which they surrender the gardens of scented delights.
From where I am sitting I watch your lone steps going upward,
And to-night I am back in those nights that we knew at the start.
I think of your eyes dark with pain, full of thwarted caressings,
And suddenly, after these years, from my hold slips my heart!
But no matter! Thereâs too much between usâwe cannot go back now
Iâm glad of it!âyes, I will say it right on to the end!â
Iâm glad that my once sore-reluctant, tempestuous lover
Hasnât leisure nor heart now to be my most leisurely friend!
My lover! Why how you would fling me the word back in fury!
Remembering you loved me at armsâ length, in spite of denial;
That the protests were double: each went from the struggle
unconquered:
The hour of soft, silken compliance was not on our dial.
You were angry for loving me, all in despite of your reasoningâ
I was angry because you were able to hold your love down;
And jealousâbecause in the scales of your logic you weighed me,
And slighted me for the dry bread of a sordid renown.
So I laughed at your lovingâI laughed in the teeth of your passion;
And I made myself fair, but to stand in you light from sheer malice;
Delighting to hold up the brim to the lips that were thirsting,
While I scorned to let fall on their dryness one drop from the
chalice!
Alas, for the lips that are strange to the sweetness of kissesâ
The kisses we dream of, and cry for, and think on in dying!
Alas, for unspoken endearments that stifle the breathing;
Since such in the depths of two hearts, never wedded, are lying!
You say, âIt is best!â but I know that you catch your breath fiercely.
I say, âIt is best!â but a sob struggles up from my bosom;
For out of a million of flowers that our fingers are free of,
The one that we care for the most is the never-plucked blossom.
Yet, O, my Unbroken, my strong oneâtoo strong for my breaking!â
I am glad of the hours when we warred with each other and Love:
Though you never drew nearer than once when your hair swept my
fingers
And their touch flushed your cheek as you bent at my side for my
glove.
Never mind! I felt kisses that broke through the bitterest sayings.
Never mind! since caresses were hid under looks that were proud.
Shall we say thereâs no moon when she leaves her dear earth in the
shadow
And hides all her light in the breast of some opportune cloud?
Yet this germ of a loveâcould it ever have bourgeoned to fulness?â
For us could there ever have been a sereneness of bliss,
With the thorns overtopping our flowers, turning fondness to soreness?
Ah, no! âtwas a thousand times better it ended like this!
And yet, if I went to you now in the stress of your toilingâ
If we stood but one moment alone while I looked in your eyesâ
What a melting of ice there would be! What a quickening of currents!
What thrills of despairing delight betwixt claspings and cries!
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This poem is in the public domain.
About This Poem
âCorinna Confessesâ originally appeared in the journal The Galaxy (Volume 19) in 1875.
[Laura Redden Searing](
Laura Redden Searing was born in Maryland in 1839. She published several collections of poetry under the pseudonym Howard Glyndon, including Idyls of Battle and Poems of the Rebellion (Hurd and Houghton, 1864) and Sounds from Secret Chambers (James R. Osgood and Company, 1873). She died in 1923.
[Idyls of Battle and Poems of the Rebellion](
Poetry by Searing
[Idyls of Battle and Poems of the Rebellion](
(Leopold Classic Library, 2016)
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"Fiddleheads" by Maureen Seaton
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