Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A NIGHT AT CORFU, by AUBREY DE VERE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A NIGHT AT CORFU, by                    
First Line: A hoary gleam through boughs prevailing
Last Line: And now the west returns the glow!
Subject(s): Corfu (island), Greece


A HOARY gleam through boughs prevailing
Tells me how near the ocean lies,
Here caged in many a waveless lake
By cypressed ridge and shadowy brake:
Far off the nightingale is wailing:
More near the watery grot replies.

The forest growths are rocked and dandled
By airs with midnight odors faint,
Soft, separate airs, o'er feathered grass
That pass me often and repass,
Like naked feet of nymphs unsandalled
That tread each lawn and alley quaint.

No voice is heard of mortal creature!
No voice, -- yet I am not alone:
Nausicaa and her virgin train
Still haunt the woodland, skirt the main,
And deck for me with human feature
Each glimmering branch and white-browed stone.

When with those maids the exile sported
The fireflies lit, as now, the glen:
That rose its blush to-day which gave
And bosom to the aspiring wave,
Descends from one old Ocean courted,
On the same cliff it may be, then!

I see not now those hills whose summits
In August keep their ermined robes;
But feel their freshness, know that round
They gird the steely gulfs profound
With feet that mock the seamen's plummets,
And foreheads crowned with starry globes.

But see! vast beams divide the heaven;
The orange-groves their blossoms show;
Over you kindling deep the Moon
Will lash her snowy coursers soon:
Now, by her brow the east is riven!
And now the west returns the glow!





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