Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO A SPIRIT (1), by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Dear (thus I dare), how I have longed Last Line: What, if not love, I cannot tell. Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund | ||||||||
DEAR (thus I dare), how I have longed To double, treble, nay, to see Past computation bloomed and thronged The love of thee that raptures me: O were I capable to clasp Thee with the serene energy, The more than wrestling-Jacob grasp Wherewith souls once took hold of thee! O rosy courage, soft resolve That pinioned thee so amorous fast -- Thither my passions now convolve And yearn to whelm thee so at last! When shall I meet thee on the mead Where kingcups fawn about thy feet And by some ivied fountain lead To tell thee that I find thee sweet? When the stormed sky forgot its scars And sunset calmed to thy red smile, When I have watched the veil of stars And thought thy glance shone out awhile, Even when three golden apples hung In winter dusk from a dim stem, I knew thee ever blithe and young, The poet smiling over them. And over mountains lustred clear If some have hailed thee, may not I? In thy own crystal atmosphere Thy beauty will come glittering by. As by a sedgy brook I came On some great white bird unaware, So in the morning's lonely flame I'll spy thee with thy streaming hair. Confused and gross in this my cry, Let me not lose thee, loving so; So, thou for once art less than I, I, mortal, will not let thee go. Or else, deny this oak, whose bough Lets honeyed light steal in to rest Upon thy contemplating brow That calms the chaffinch on her nest. Or else, uproot these daisies: beat The brook's live emerald till it's null, Tear down this dancing meadowsweet, Make this hare's fur unbeautiful. What wouldst thou have, sweet spirit, who Hast lured me with so many a spell? Thou smilest deep, thou meanest true -- What, if not love, I cannot tell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FOREFATHERS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN REPORT ON EXPERIENCE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN SOLUTIONS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE GIANT PUFFBALL by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE MIDNIGHT SKATERS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN VLAMERTINGHE: PASSING THE CHATEAU, JULY 1917 by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN 11TH R.S.R. by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN 1916 SEEN FROM 1921 by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN A 'FIRST IMPRESSION': TOKYO by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN A BRIDGE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |
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