Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ALMOND-TREE, by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ALMOND-TREE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Pure soul, who in god's high-walled paradise
Last Line: The white fringe on the sable pall of death


PURE soul, who in God's high-walled Paradise
Dost walk in all the whiteness of new birth,
And hear'st the angels' shrill antiphonies,
Which are to heaven what time is to the earth,
Give ear to one to whom in days of old
Thou gavest tears for sorrow, smiles for mirth,
And all the passion one poor heart could hold!

Behold, O Love! to-day how hushed and still
My heart is, and my lips and hands are calm;
When last I strove to win you to my will,
The angels drowned my pleading in a psalm;
But now, sweet heart, there is no fear of this,
For I am quiet; therefore let the balm
Of thy light breath be on me in a kiss!

Alas! I dream again! All this is o'er!
. . . See, I look down into our garden-close,
From your old casement-sill where once you wore
The ivy for a garland on your brows;
There is no amaranth, no pomegranate here,
But can your heart forget the Christmas-rose,
The crocuses and snowdrops once so dear?

But these, like our old love, are all gone by,
And now the violets round the apple-roots
Glimmer, and jonquils in the deep grass lie,
And fruit-trees thicken into pale green shoots;
Thy garth, that put on mourning for thy death,
Is comforted, and to the sound of lutes
Dances with spring, a minstrel of bright breath.

But I am not yet comforted, O Love!
Does not the aureole blind thy gentle eyes?
That crimson robe of thine the virgins wove
Trammels thy footsteps with its draperies,
Else thou would'st see, would'st come to me, if even
The Cherubim withstood with trumpet-cries,
And barred with steel the jewelled gates of heaven!

In vain, in vain! Lo! on this first spring morn,
For all my words, my heart is nearer rest,
And though my life, through loss of thee, is worn
To saddest memory by a brief dream blest,
I would not mar one moment of thy bliss
To clasp again thy bright and heaving breast,
Or fade into the fragrance of thy kiss.

Yet would an hour on earth with me be pain?
A greater boon than this of old was won
By her, who through the fair Sicilian plain
Sought her lost daughter, the delicious one,
With tears and rending of the flowery hair;
And sang so deftly underneath the sun,
That Hell was well-nigh vanquished by her prayer.

Hail, golden ray of God's most blessed light!
Hail, sunbeam, breaking from the faint March sky!
What rosy vision melts upon my sight?
What glory opens where the flashes die?
Surely she comes to me on earth, and stands
Among the flowerless lingering trees that sigh
Around her, and she stretches forth her hands.

Her hands she stretches forth, but speaketh not,
And all the bloom and effluence round her rise
That crown her heavenly saintship with no spot,
Herself the fairest flower in Paradise;
Draw near and speak to me, O Love, in grace,
And let me drink the beauty of thine eyes,
And learn of God by gazing in thy face.

Tempt not my passion with such lingering feet,
My trembling throat and strained white lips are numb;
Through black twined boughs I see thy body, sweet!
Robed in rose-white, thou standest calm and dumb!
Oh heart of my desire, no more delay,
Yet nearer in thy cloudy glory come,
Yet nearer, or in glory fade away!

Fade then, sweet vision! fail, O perfect dream!
There is no need of words of human speech;
The sightless ecstasy of thought I deem
A loftier joy than mortal sense can reach;
No more, ye flowers of spring, shall my dull song
Be heavy in your ears, but, each to each,
My love and I hold converse and be strong.

The mystic splendour pines away, and leaves
Its fainter shadow in the almond-tree,
Whose cloud of bloom-white blossom earliest cleaves
The waste wan void of earth's sterility;
Before the troop of lyric Dryades,
Veiled, blushing as a bride, it comes, and see'
Spring leaps to kiss it, glowing in the breeze.

While life shall bring with each revolving year
Its winter-woes and icy mystery,
This fair remembrance of the sun shall bear
Fresh thoughts of Love re-risen in memory;
Old hopes shall blossom with the west wind's breath,
And for her sake the almond-bloom shall be
The white fringe on the sable pall of death





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