Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CRUMBS, by NORMAN ROWLAND GALE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CRUMBS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Often I watch, when violets are in season
Last Line: From quick, or from the honeysuckle's horn.
Subject(s): Aging; Lust; Winter


OFTEN I watch, when violets are in season,
Maids in the hedgeside (watching is no treason!)
Bending with palms of sunshine on their tresses,
Held by the thorns curved fondly in their dresses,
While there they seek in winter leaves and chill
The flowers can make their bosoms sweeter still.

Them do I often dare to follow, hoping
Blooms have escaped for my less lovely groping;
Often discover in some dead-leaf chamber,
Swathed all around by skeletons of amber
Mouldered not yet entirely by decay,
Blue flowers preserved from eyes more blue than they.

And thus along the lyric side of hedges
Bounding Song's kingdom, past her fluent sedges,
Slowly I tread the prints of noble Masters
Singing the natural blisses and disasters;
Half sad, half happy, when my glances find
How bare the country left by them behind.

Hope will not sleep. It seems I needs must follow,
Surely as frost and snow the exiled swallow,
Hoping to see a vision in the rushes,
Catch newer meanings in the hearts of thrushes,
And reach a hand to beauty not yet torn
From quick, or from the honeysuckle's horn.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net