Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CHATELARD, by THEOPHILE JULIUS HENRY MARZIALS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CHATELARD, by                    
First Line: A long day spent at chatelard for sketching
Last Line: And stopp'd the loving ere the sketch was done.
Alternate Author Name(s): Marzials, Theo; Marzials, Theophile Jules Henri
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Death; Hearts; Love; Dead, The


A long day spent at Chatelard for sketching;
A glowing sky above; another sky
As clear the lake beneath; towards it stretching
The vines and long white walls where melons lie.

We set our easels in a small oasis
Of orchard-shade, and wearied with the glare
Of noon, our eyes sought on each other's faces
A rest in reading love, no secret there.

And in that love was nothing to remind us
How we were leaving other things undone,
And Chatelard rose gloomily behind us,
And cast a broad black shadow from the sun.

The chatty magpies whirl'd into the thickets,
The deep datura's breath grew over-sweet,
The finches left their trilling to the crickets,
The glow-worms glimmer'd faintly at our feet.

The yellowing tendrils quiver'd on the trestle,
The night-wind found a word still to be said,
And made her heedless hands but closer nestle
In mine -- and yet the love was but half-read.

* * *

A long day spent for sketching! -- Who'd discover
A sketch in those unfinish'd shades and lines?
For now my heart alone can there recover
The sense of glowing slopes and torrid vines.

O Chatelard! she left me when your orchard
Grew cold and bare with Summer and the sun,
And death has left my heart all cleft and tortured,
And stopp'd the loving ere the sketch was done.





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