Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE VISITATION OF PEACE, by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE Poet's Biography First Line: I closed the book of verse where sorrow wept Last Line: Rising see clear the everlasting land. Subject(s): Death; Depression, Mental; Grief; Keats, John (1795-1821); Love; Poetry & Poets; Dead, The; Mentally Depressed; Mental Distress; Sorrow; Sadness | ||||||||
I CLOSED the book of verse where Sorrow wept Above Love's broken fane where Hope once prayed, And thought of old trysts broken and trysts kept Only to chide my fondness. Then I strayed Down a green coil of lanes where murmuring wings Moved up and down like lights upon the sea, Searching for calm amid untroubled things Of wood and water. The industrious bee Sang in his barn within the hollow beech, And in a distant haggard a loud mill Hummed like a war of hives. A whispered speech Of corn and wind was on the yellow hill, And tattered scarecrows nodded their assent And waved their arms like orators. The brown Nude beauty of the Autumn sweetly bent Over the woods, across the little town. I sat in a retreating shade beside The river, where it fell across a weir Like a white mane, and in a flourish wide Roars by an island field and thro' a tier Of leaning sallies, like an avenue When the moon's flambeau hunts the shadows out And strikes the borders white across the dew. Where little ringlets ended, the fleet trout Fed on the water moths. A marsh hen crossed On flying wings and swimming feet to where Her mate was in the rushes forest, tossed On the heaving dusk like swallows in the air. Beyond the river a walled rood of graves Hung dead with all its hemlock wan and sere, Save where the wall was broken and long waves Of yellow grass flowed outward like a weir, As if the dead were striving for more room And their old places in the scheme of things; For sometimes the thought comes that the brown tomb Is not the end of all our labourings, But we are born once more of wind and rain, To sow the world with harvest young and strong, That men may live by men 'til the stars wane, And still sweet music fill the blackbird's song. But O for truths about the soul denied. Shall I meet Keats in some wild isle of balm, Dreaming beside a tarn where green and wide Boughs of sweet cinnamon protect the calm Of the dark water? And together walk Thro' hills with dimples full of water where White angels rest, and all the dead years talk About the changes of the earth? Despair Sometimes takes hold of me but yet I hope To hope the old hope in the better times When I am free to cast aside the rope That binds me to all sadness 'till my rhymes Cry like lost birds. But O, if I should die Ere this millennium, and my hands be crossed Under the flowers I loved, the passers-by Shall scowl at me as one whose soul is lost. But a soft peace came to me when the West Shut its red door and a thin streak of moon Was twisted on the twilight's dusky breast. It wrapped me up as sometimes a sweet tune Heard for the first time wraps the scenes around, That we may have their memories when some hand Strikes it in other times and hopes unbound Rising see clear the everlasting land. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONOMA FIRE by JANE HIRSHFIELD AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARDS by JOHN HOLLANDER WHAT GREAT GRIEF HAS MADE THE EMPRESS MUTE by JUNE JORDAN CHAMBER MUSIC: 19 by JAMES JOYCE DIRGE AT THE END OF THE WOODS by LEONIE ADAMS EVENING CLOUDS by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE |
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