“All lovers live by longing, and endure:
Summon a vision and declare it pure.”

— Theodore Roethke, The Waking

"Four for Sir John Davies," ll. 73-78
The Waking (1953)
Context: Dante attained the purgatorial hill,
Trembled at hidden virtue without flaw,
Shook with a mighty power beyond his will, —
Did Beatrice deny what Dante saw?
All lovers live by longing, and endure:
Summon a vision and declare it pure.

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Theodore Roethke86

American poet 1908–1963

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