Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO HENRIK ISBSEN ON ENTERING HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH YEAR, by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO HENRIK ISBSEN ON ENTERING HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH YEAR, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Red star, that on the forehead of the north
Last Line: Kneel to thy red refulgence till I die.
Subject(s): Dramatists; Ibsen, Henrik (1828-1906); Plays & Playwrights ; Dramatists


RED Star, that on the forehead of the North
Hast flared so high and with so fierce a blaze,
Thy long vermilion light still issues forth
Through night of fir-woods down the waterways,
In urgent wrath of sinister wild rays;
Lower it falls, and nearer to the sea, --
But still the dark horizon flames with thee.

All stars and suns roll their predestined course,
Invade the zenith, poise, then downward turn;
Thrust onward by some godlike secret force,
They sparkle, flush, and, e'er they fade, they burn,
Each quenched at last in its historic urn;
Each sloping to its cold material grave;
Yet each remembered by the light it gave.

Thy radiance, angry Star, shall fill the sky,
When all thy mortal being hath decayed;
Thine is a splendour never doomed to die,
Long clouded by man's vapours, long delayed,
But risen at last above all envious shade:
Amid the pearly throng of lyric stars,
Thy fighting orb has stormed the sky like Mars.

And when the slow revolving years have driven
All softer fire below the western wave,
Though strange new planets crowd our startled heaven,
The soul will still bear on its architrave
The light, reflected, that thy lustre gave.
Hail, burning Star! A dazzled Magian, I
Kneel to thy red refulgence till I die.





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