THE BITTERNESS of death and bitterer scorn <br />Breathes from the broad-leafed aloe-plant whence thou <br />Wast fain to gather for thy bended brow <br />A chaplet by no gentler forehead worn. <br />Grief deep as hell, wrath hardly to be borne, <br />Ploughed up thy soul till round the furrowing plough <br />The strange black soil foamed, as a black beaked prow <br />Bids night-black waves foam where its track has torn. <br />Too faint the phrase for thee that only saith <br />Scorn bitterer than the bitterness of death <br />Pervades the sullen splendour of thy soul, <br />Where hate and pain make war on force and fraud <br />And all the strengths of tyrants; whence unflawed <br />It keeps this noble heart of hatred whole.<br /><br />Algernon Charles Swinburne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/john-marston-xii/
