The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 23. …to wreathe the brows of day…

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...to wreathe the brows of day...

After hard work and a sense of achievement,

I want sweet nothings to dream the hours away,

To tarry with the fleeting pleasures of day

And revel in great and small as a present:

To sing gentle poets' verse and know what they meant,

Stretched in the grass, near those gurgling springs at play,

By rose bushes, and under where lime trees sway,

To live life carefree, with no encumberment.

In May to wreathe the brows of day with a score

Of green foliage and beautify in kind

Sultry nights with wine and love till it's day once more.

Even if a mortal judge frowns and turns blind

To accuse me of its worst abuses at core,

This life's the only thing that pleases my mind.

—August von Platen,[i]

circa 1805