Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A FRAGMENT, by ALICE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A FRAGMENT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: It was a sandy level wherein stood
Last Line: As morning falls from heaven -- so bright! So bright.
Subject(s): Houses; Love


IT was a sandy level wherein stood
The old and lonesome house; far as the eye
Could measure, on the green back of the wood,
The smoke lay always, low and lazily.

Down the high gable windows, all one way,
Hung the long, drowsy curtains, and across
The sunken shingles, where the rain would stay,
The roof was ridged, a hand's breadth deep, with moss.

The place was all so still you would have said
The picture of the Summer, drawn, should be
With golden ears, laid back against her head,
And listening to the far, low-lying sea.

But from the rock, rough-grained and icy-crowned,
Some little flower from out some cleft will rise;
And in this quiet land my love I found,
With all their soft light, sleepy, in her eyes.

No bush to lure a bird to sing to her --
In depths of calm the gnats' faint hum was drowned,
And the wind's voice was like a little stir
Of the uneasy silence, not like sound.

No tender trembles of the dew at close
Of day, -- at morn, no insect choir;
No sweet bees at sweet work about the rose,
Like little housewife fairies round their fire.

And yet the place, suffused with her, seemed fair --
Ah, I would be immortal, could I write
How from her forehead fell the shining hair,
As morning falls from heaven -- so bright! so bright.





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