Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WORDSWORTH, by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WORDSWORTH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A moonlit desert's yellow sands
Last Line: Had yielded their serenity.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hedbrooke, Andrew
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)


A MOONLIT desert's yellow sands,
Where, dimmer than its shadow, stands
A motionless palm-tree here and there,
And the great stars through amber air
Burn calm as planets, and the face
Of earth seems lifting into space: --

A tropic ocean's starlit rest,
Along whose smooth and sleeping breast
Slow swells just stir the mirrored gleams,
Like faintest sighs in placid dreams;
All overhead the night, so high
And hollow that there seems no sky,
But the unfathomed deeps, among
The worlds down endless arches swung: --

On moonlit plain, and starlit sea,
Is life's lost charm, tranquillity.

A poet found it once, and took
It home, and hid it in a book,
As one might press a violet.
There still the odor lingers yet.
Delicious; from your treasured tomes
Reach down your Wordsworth, and there comes
That fragrance which no bard but he
E'er caught, as if the plain and sea
Had yielded their serenity.





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