Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, INVOCATION; WRITTEN IN THE GULF OF LYONS DURING A STORM, by WILLIAM SHARP


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

INVOCATION; WRITTEN IN THE GULF OF LYONS DURING A STORM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Play me a lulling tune, o flute-player of sleep
Last Line: Beyond the last, low, long, oblivious sigh.
Alternate Author Name(s): Macleod, Fiona
Subject(s): Comfort; Lyons, France; Prayer; Sea; Sleep; Storms; Wind; Ocean


Play me a lulling tune, O Flute-Player of Sleep.
Across the twilight bloom of thy purple havens.
Far off a phantom stag on the moon-yellow highlands
Ceases; and, as a shadow, wavers; and passes:
So let Silence seal me and Darkness gather, Piper of Sleep.

Play me a lulling chant, O Anthem-Maker,
Out of the fall of lonely seas, and the wind's sorrow:
Behind are the burning glens of the sunset sky
Where like blown ghosts the seamews wail their desolate sea-dirges:
Make me of these a lulling chant, O Anthem-Maker.

No—no—from nets of silence weave me, O Sigher of Sleep,
A dusky veil ash-grey as the moon-pale moth's grey wing;
Of thicket-stillness woven, and sleep of grass, and thin evanishing air
Where the tall reed spires breathless—for I am tired, O Sigher of Sleep,
And long for thy muffled song as of bells on the wind, and the wind's cry
Falling, and the dim wastes that lie
Beyond the last, low, long, oblivious sigh.





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