Beauty And Hate

I have sought and followed you, drunk with your sacred wine;
Led out by a laughing wind on a tumbling sea,
On crags amid clouds, in cups that allure the bee,
And deep in the gem-lit gloom of the tortuous mine,
And on widespread wings where the great worlds dance and shine
I have sought by the golden light; but have bent the knee
At last where you lie, a humble goddess and free,
Naked and flushed in the warmth of a crimson shrine.
The hordes of hate have trampled your blooms in mire,
And cackle and roar as their mockery priests blaspheme,
And sing the marching hymn of a wingless might.
They forge their god in the heat of unholy fire
The squat strong incubus born of an evil dream;
And it shrinks and crumbles away in the golden light.

John Le Gay Brereton

John Le Gay Brereton was an Australian poet, critic, and professor of English who was born on September 2, 1871, and died on February 2, 1933. He is best known for his association with the Bulletin school of Australian poetry and for promoting Australian literature. Brereton's contributions to poetry and literary criticism made him a significant figure in early 20th-century Australian literature. His academic career also included a long tenure at the University of Sydney.

John Le Gay Brereton

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John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

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John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

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John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

English

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Hymn To Beauty

O Beauty! do you visit from the sky
Or the abyss? infernal and divine,
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So it is said you act on us like wine.

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Your kiss is potion from an ancient jar,
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Are you of heaven or the nether world?
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Beauty, you walk on corpses, mocking them;
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Within the dwindling glow of light from languid lamps,
Sunk in the softest cushions soaked with heady scent,
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Benediction

When, by an edict of the powers supreme,
The Poet in this bored world comes to be,
His daunted mother, eager to blaspheme,
Rages to God, who looks down piteously:

'Rather than have this mockery to nurse
Why not a nest of snakes for me to bear!
And may that night of fleeting lust be cursed,
When I conceived my penance, unaware!

Since from all women you chose me to shame,
To be disgusting to my grieving spouse,
And since I can't just drop into the flames
Like an old love-note, this misshapen mouse,

1'1l turn your hate that overburdens me
Toward the damned agent of your spiteful doom,
And I will twist this miserable tree
So its infected buds will never bloom!'

She swallows thus her hatred's foaming spit
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Condemned Women

Like pensive cattle lying on the sands
They gaze upon the endless seas, until
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Some, with full hearts from long and private talk
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Allegory

Picture a beauty, shoulders rich and fine,
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Her eyes call mortal beings to the charms
Of ready breasts, between her open arms.
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Leonard Da Vinci, sombre and fathomless glass,
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Rembrandt, sad hospital that a murmuring fills,
Where one tall crucifix hangs on the walls,
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