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“Sanctuary” by Ford Madox Ford 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (17 Dec 187326 Jun 1939)
Shadowed by your dear hair, your dear kind eyes
Look on wine-purple seas, whitened afar
With marble foam, where the dim islands are.
We sit forgetting. For the great pines rise
Above dark cypress to the dim white skies
So clear and black and still-to one great star.
The marble dryads and the veined white jar
Gleam from the grove. Glimmering, the white owl flies
In the dark shade …
If ever life was harsh
Here we forget—or ever friends turned foes.
The sea cliffs beetle down above the marsh
And through sea-holly the black panther goes.
And in the shadows of this secret place
Your kind, dear eyes shine in your dear, dear face.