A GLANCE AT MARVELL

Not disdain, but in quiet knowing, your orbit’s reach
swept beyond common eyes, beyond the limited lenses
of mere stargazers. The firmament was for lesser lights,
the vain ones content to sing the lesser senses:
for you were one with gods, your distant sights
set on divine tongues, a remote austere speech.

Not flourish nor conceit, but a cavalier insouciance
marked your passage through worlds, lives, and time;
mocked the grave’s seclusion, gravely making love
to shy mistresses, an ear cocked for wheels on grime.
And in jewelled strophes, an eternity glimpsed above
the running sun, above the dark empyrean’s effulgence.

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