Classic and Contemporary Poetry
CAUCASUS (2), by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: At midnight / the moon arose: and lo! The ethereal cliffs Last Line: Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon. Subject(s): Caucasus (mountains); Russia; Caucasia (mountains); Soviet Union; Russians | ||||||||
AT midnight The moon arose: and lo! the ethereal cliffs Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone Among the stars like sunlight, and around Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves Bursting and eddying irresistibly Rage and resound forever. The noonday sun Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves, Scooped in the dark base of those aery rocks, Mocking its moans, respond and roar forever. The meeting boughs and implicated leaves Wove twilight o'er the poet's path, as led By love, or dream, or God, or mightier Death, He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank, Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark And dark the shades accumulate, -- the oak, Expanding its immeasurable arms, Embraces the light beech. The pyramids Of the tall cedar overarching, frame Most solemn domes within, and far below, Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky, The ash and the acacia floating hang Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed In rainbow and in fire, the parasites, Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around The gray trunks, and as gamesome infants' eyes, With gentle meanings and most innocent wiles, Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love, These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs, Uniting their close union; the woven leaves Make network of the dark-blue light of day, And the night's noontide clearness, mutable As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns Beneath these canopies extend their swells, Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine, A soul-dissolving odor, to invite To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell, Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades Like vaporous shapes half seen; beyond, a well, Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave, Images all the woven boughs above, And each depending leaf, and every speck Of azure sky, darting between their chasms: Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves Its portraiture, but some inconstant star Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair, Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon, Or gorgeous insect floating motionless, Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OXOTA: A SHORT RUSSIAN NOVEL: CHAPTER 259 by LYN HEJINIAN A FOREIGN COUNTRY by JOSEPHINE MILES THE DIAMOND PERSONA by NORMAN DUBIE IN MEMORIAM: 1933 (7. RUSSIA: ANNO 1905) by CHARLES REZNIKOFF TAKE A LETTER TO DMITRI SHOSTAKOVITCH by CARL SANDBURG READING THE RUSSIANS by RUTH STONE THE SOVIET CIRCUS VISITS HAVANA, 1969 by VIRGIL SUAREZ A PROBLEM IN AESTHETICS by KAREN SWENSON A DIRGE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY ADONAIS; AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY |
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