Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE PINE FOREST OF THE CASCINE NEAR PISA (1ST DRAFT OF 'TO JANE'), by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Dearest, best and brightest Last Line: Than calm in waters seen. Subject(s): Pine Trees; Pisa, Italy; Trees | ||||||||
DEAREST, best and brightest, Come away, To the woods and to the fields! Dearer than this fairest day Which, like thee to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough Year just awake In its cradle in the brake. The eldest of the hours of Spring, Into the winter wandering, Looks upon the leafless wood; And the banks all bare and rude Found, it seems, this halcyon Morn In February's bosom born, Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, Kissed the cold forehead of the Earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free; And waked to music all the fountains, And breathed upon the rigid mountains, And made the wintry world appear Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. Radiant Sister of the Day, Awake! arise! and come away! To the wild woods and the plains, To the pools where winter rains Image all the roof of leaves, Where the pine its garland weaves Sapless, gray, and ivy dun Round stems that never kiss the sun -- To the sandhills of the sea, Where the earliest violets be. Now the last day of many days, All beautiful and bright as thou, The loveliest and the last, is dead, Rise, Memory, and write its praise! And do thy wonted work and trace The epitaph of glory fled; For now the Earth has changed its face, A frown is on the Heaven's brow. We wandered to the Pine Forest That skirts the Ocean's foam, The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home. The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play, And on the woods, and on the deep, The smile of Heaven lay. It seemed as if the day were one Sent from beyond the skies, Which shed to earth above the sun A light of Paradise. We paused amid the pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude With stems like serpents interlaced How calm it was -- the silence there By such a chain was bound That even the busy woodpecker Made stiller by her sound The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew. It seemed that from the remotest seat Of the white mountain's waste, To the bright flower beneath our feet, A magic circle traced; -- A spirit interfused around, A thinking silent life, To momentary peace it bound Our mortal nature's strife; -- And still it seemed the centre of The magic circle there, Was one whose being filled with love The breathless atmosphere. Were not the crocuses that grew Under that ilex-tree As beautiful in scent and hue As ever fed the bee? We stood beside the pools that lie Under the forest bough, And each seemed like a sky Gulfed in a world below; A purple firmament of light, Which in the dark earth lay, More boundless than the depth of night, And clearer than the day -- In which the massy forests grew As in the upper air, More perfect both in shape and hue Than any waving there. Like one beloved the scene had lent To the dark water's breast Its every leaf and lineament With that clear truth expressed; There lay far glades and neighboring lawn, And through the dark green crowd The white sun twinkling like the dawn Under a speckled cloud. Sweet views, which in our world above Can never well be seen, Were imaged by the water's love Of that fair forest green. And all was interfused beneath Within an Elysium air An atmosphere without a breath, A silence sleeping there. Until a wandering wind crept by, Like an unwelcome thought, Which from my mind's too faithful eye Blots thy bright image out. For thou art good and dear and kind, The forest ever green, But less of peace in S------'s mind, Than calm in waters seen. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PROBLEM OF DESCRIBING TREES by ROBERT HASS THE GREEN CHRIST by ANDREW HUDGINS MIDNIGHT EDEN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN REFLECTION OF THE WOOD by LEONIE ADAMS THE LIFE OF TREES by DORIANNE LAUX A DIRGE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY ADONAIS; AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY |
|