Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AT FONT-GEORGES, by THEODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AT FONT-GEORGES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O fields so still and green
Last Line: Phosphor with flowers.
Subject(s): Nature


O FIELDS so still and green,
That nursed my youth serene!
O days of joy untold,
All strung with gold!

Font-Georges, my natal bed,
Where have your robins fled?
What distant coppice pales
Your nightingales?

White-gabled home of mine,
Do still the tendrils twine
And leaves that interlink
Thy teardrops drink?

Tree, slanting shadows cool
Athwart the crystal pool,
Is there one walnut left
Within thy cleft?

Lithe rivulet and spring,
Can ye nepenthe bring
Across the stony ways
As in past days?

Rings still the maidens' song
Your purling banks along,
Where hands that dip from sight
Lave linen white?

Eld mountain-ash, thrice gored
By heaven's thunderous sword,
Hast thou been brought to bow
Thy hoary brow?

High wood with verdant towers,
Where hide thy hazel bowers,
Thy stately poplars bowing
To west wind's ploughing?

Swart vines that clothe the hill,
Do ye your clusters spill
Down purple staves o'erladen
For man and maiden?

Doth Autumn's jubilance
In rustic mirtll and dance
Around the brimming press
Lure loveliness?

Sweet-attared eglantine,
Dost thou from briar and spine
Drop flowers of burning red,
As acorns shed?

Grove with the willows blue,
Home me with ring-dove's coo!
Melt me with murmuring lyre
Sinking in fire!

Still, still the cherries gleam!
Still in the plashing stream
Fair gleaners, unaware,
Beauty lay bare.

Caves, rocks and winding ways,
Fields where the poppies blaze,
When I your sweets forget
Life's sun shall set.

Silent and dusky woods,
Childhood's beatitudes,
Though I my debt confess
Still love you less

Less than this sombre dell,
Roseless as rugged fell,
Less than these mournful yews
Dank with night's dews.

Here on this brow of sand
Love took my idle hand;
Urged me with magic words,
Tuneful as birds.

Here once a radiant guest
Sank in my throbbing breast,
Kindling, with lips aglow
Murmuring low.

Pensive and thrilled she lay,
Glorious in disarray,
Rending a rose's heart,
Blind to its smart.

Under the moon's white bars,
Trembling, the urgent stars
Broidered heaven's fleeting bowers
Phosphor with flowers.





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