XXXVI

XXXVI

By Michael Field Michael Field
Yea, gold is son of Zeus: no rust
    Its timeless light can stain;
The worm that brings man's flesh to dust
    Assaults its strength in vain:
More gold than gold the love I sing,
A hard, inviolable thing.

Men say the passions should grow old
     With waning years; my heart
Is incorruptible as gold,
     'Tis my immortal part:
Nor is there any god can lay
On love the finger of decay.

Source: Long Ago (Thomas B. Mosher, 1897)

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Poet Michael Field

POET’S REGION England

SCHOOL / PERIOD Victorian

Subjects Living, Growing Old, Time & Brevity, Religion, Faith & Doubt, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism, Greek & Roman Mythology

Poetic Terms Rhymed Stanza

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Under the pseudonym Michael Field, Katherine Harris Bradley and her niece Edith Emma Cooper collaboratively published eight books of poetry and twenty-seven plays in late 19th-century Britain. The two women enjoyed a warm reception as Field in Victorian literary circles upon the release of their first major verse drama, Callirhoë and Fair Rosamond (1884), even garnering the admiration of Walter Pater, George Meredith, and Robert . . .

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SUBJECT Living, Growing Old, Time & Brevity, Religion, Faith & Doubt, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism, Greek & Roman Mythology

POET’S REGION England

SCHOOL / PERIOD Victorian

Poetic Terms Rhymed Stanza

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Originally appeared in Poetry magazine.

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