Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A MEMORY, by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE Poet's Biography First Line: Low sounds of night that drip upon the ear Last Line: Hammer in mine a never easy bell. Subject(s): Memory | ||||||||
LOW sounds of night that drip upon the ear, The plumed lapwing's cry, the curlew's call, Clear in the far dark heard, a sound as drear As raindrops pelted from a nodding rush To give a white wink once and broken fall Into a deep dark pool: they pain the hush, As if the fiery meteor's slanting lance Had found their empty craws: they fill with sound The silence, with the merry round, The sounding mazes of a last year's dance. I thought to watch the stars come spark by spark Out on the muffled night, and watch the moon Go round the full, and turn upon the dark, And sharpen towards the new, and waiting watch The grand Kaleidoscope of midnight noon Change colours on the dew, where high hills notch The low and moony sky. But who dare cast One brief hour's horoscope, whose tuned ear Makes every sound the music of last year? Whose hopes are built up in the door of Past? No, not more silent does the spider stitch A cobweb on the fern, nor fogdrops fall On sheaves of harvest when the night is rich With moonbeams, than the spirits of delight Walk the dark passages of Memory's hall. We feel them not, but in the wastes of night We hear their low-voiced mediums, and we rise To wrestle old Regrets, to see old faces, To meet and part in old tryst-trodden places With breaking heart, and emptying of eyes. I feel the warm hand on my shoulder light, I hear the music of a voice that words The slow time of the feet, I see the white Arms slanting, and the dimples fold and fill. . . . I hear wing-flutters of the early birds, I see the tide of morning landward spill, The cloaking maidens, hear the voice that tells "You'd never know" and "Soon perhaps again," With white teeth biting down the inly pain, Then sounds of going away and sad farewells. A year ago! It seems but yesterday. Yesterday! And a hundred years! All one. 'Tis laid a something finished, dark, away, To gather mould upon the shelves of Time. What matters hours or aeons when 'tis gone? And yet the heart will dust it of its grime, And hover round it in a silver spell, Be lost in it and cry aloud in fear; And like a lost soul in a pious ear, Hammer in mine a never easy bell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MEMORY AS A HEARING AID by TONY HOAGLAND THE SAME QUESTION by JOHN HOLLANDER FORGET HOW TO REMEMBER HOW TO FORGET by JOHN HOLLANDER ON THAT SIDE by LAWRENCE JOSEPH MEMORY OF A PORCH by DONALD JUSTICE BEYOND THE HUNTING WOODS by DONALD JUSTICE EVENING CLOUDS by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE |
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