If I Have Made, My Lady, Intricate
If I Have Made, My Lady, Intricate - meaning Summary
Apology and Reverence to Beloved
A speaker apologizes for his awkward, inadequate poems that cannot capture the beloved’s living beauty. He admits his songs and skill fall short of her glance, smile, and presence, and that public praise may call his work lifeless. Yet her vivid aliveness only intensifies his sense of failure, as the beloved — compared to April’s small feet — has entered and transformed his ragged soul beyond poetic reach.
Read Complete AnalysesIf I have made, my lady, intricate imperfect various things chiefly which wrong your eyes (frailer than most deep dreams are frail) songs less firm than your body's whitest song upon my mind - if I have failed to snare the glance too shy - if through my singing slips the very skillful strangeness of your smile the keen primeval silence of your hair - let the world say "his most wise music stole nothing from death" - you will only create (who are so perfectly alive) my shame: lady whose profound and fragile lips the sweet small clumsy feet of April came into the ragged meadow of my soul.
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