A Vision

No! Not one trace of make-up did she wear

but kept her dress as simple as her heart

was pure. She wore no ribbons in such hair

as she displayed, it seems, with “artless art.”

Yet, of all creatures that are beautiful,

she was the wisest and the best.

Compared with her all others seemed so dull.

(Why! Just to look at her left all things blest.)

Nature conspires, in such, to bring to bear

all of its force and fury on one place

so innocently it can hardly share

its deepest plenitude without that grace

she freely makes available to all

beyond the limits of Man’s final Fall.

John H.B. Martin is a poet who lives in London, England. He is a graduate of London University and Australia National University and has been writing for many decades. He has written four novels and is working on a fifth. His magnum opus is a six-volume epic poem. Most of his work is yet to be published.