Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE DARK CHATEAU, by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: In dreams a dark chateau Last Line: My dark chateau. Alternate Author Name(s): Ramal, Walter; De La Mare, Walter Subject(s): Dreams; Nightmares | ||||||||
In dreams a dark chateau Stands ever open to me, In far ravines dream-waters flow, Descending soundlessly; Above its peaks the eagle floats, Lone in a sunless sky; Mute are the golden woodland throats Of the birds flitting by. No voice is audible. The wind Sleeps in its peace. No flower of the light can find Refuge beneath its trees; Only the darkening ivy climbs Mingled with wilding rose, And cypress, morn and evening, time's Black shadow throws. All vacant, and unknown; Only the dreamer steps From stone to hollow stone, Where the green moss sleeps, Peers at the river in its deeps, The eagle lone in the sky, While the dew of evening drips, Coldly and silently. Would that I could steal in! -- Into each secret room; Would that my sleep-bright eyes could win To the inner gloom; Gaze from its high windows, Far down its mouldering walls, Where amber-clear still Lethe flows, And foaming falls. But ever as I gaze, From slumber soft doth come Some touch my stagnant sense to raise To its old earthly home; Fades then that sky serene; And peak of ageless snow; Fades to a paling dawn-lit green, My dark chateau. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VARIATIONS: 14 by CONRAD AIKEN VARIATIONS: 18 by CONRAD AIKEN LIVE IT THROUGH by DAVID IGNATOW A DREAM OF GAMES by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN THE DREAM OF WAKING by RANDALL JARRELL APOLOGY FOR BAD DREAMS by ROBINSON JEFFERS GIVE YOUR WISH LIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS ALL THAT'S PAST by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE |
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