Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MEMORIES, by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR


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MEMORIES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Rare was the cloud by volga's stream
Last Line: Ye glow and glide eternally!
Alternate Author Name(s): Dean
Subject(s): Egypt; Memory


RARE was the cloud by Volga's stream
When morning over Asia shone —
The cloud that caught its crimson beam
And sailed o'er earth and sky supreme,
Wrapped in a fiery-purple gleam;
An eagle from the Oural blown,
A messenger of bliss or ban
With wide wings drifting past Kazan!
And dome and cross and minaret
A moment in its bloom were set;
Then flame and purple paled to gray
And down the steppe dissolved in day.

When sunset's wide resplendent glow
O'er Tyre and Sidon faded slow
Through gold and rose and violet
Till Sharon's plain with dew was wet
And the hills darkened, one by one,
And night came down on Lebanon —
That hour like gates of Paradise
The peaks of Hermon barred the skies
And zephyrs lulled the pulsing air
Till mount and vale seemed lost in prayer; —
From Moab to the northern strand
'Twas Holy Land, 'twas Holy Land!

Rich are the hues that flush and steep
In twilight grandeur Egypt's river,
When cool the winds from Philæe creep
Past Karnak's immemorial sleep
And Memnon's watchers fain to keep
Their gaze adown the east forever!
While weird the pyramids recline,
Wan forms against the golden shine,
And through the orange dusk the plain
Dims to the desert and the main.

Ah, cloud and peak and stream, for me
Ye glow and glide eternally!





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