Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IRIS, by BAYARD TAYLOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IRIS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I am born from the womb of the cloud
Last Line: Is builded of light and air!
Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Eyes; Soul


I.

I AM born from the womb of the cloud
And the strength of the ardent sun,
When the winds have ceased to be loud
And the rivers of rain to run.
Then light, on my sevenfold arch,
I swing in the silence of air,
While the vapors beneath me march
And leave the sweet earth bare.

II.

For a moment, I hover and gleam
On the skirts of the sinking storm,
And I die in the bliss of the beam
That gave me being and form.
I fade, as in human hearts
The rapture that mocks the will;
I pass, as a dream departs
That cannot itself fulfil!

III.

Beyond the bridge I have spanned
The fields of the Poet unfold,
And the riches of Fairyland
At my bases of misty gold.
I keep the wealth of the spheres
Which the high Gods never have won
And I coin, from their airy tears,
The diadem of the sun!

IV.

For some have stolen the grace
That is hidden in rest or strife
And some have copied the face
Or echoed the voice of Life;
And some have woven of sound
A chain of the sweetest control,
And some have fabled or found
The key to the human soul:

V.

But I, from the blank of the air
And the white of the barren beam,
Have wrought the colors that flare
In the forms of a painter's dream.
I gather the souls of the flowers,
And the sparks of the gems, to me;
Till pale are the blossoming bowers,
And dim the chameleon sea!

VI.

By the soul's bright sun, the eye,
I am thrown on the artist's brain;
He follows me, and I fly;
He pauses, I stand again.
O'er the reach of the painted world
My chorded colors I hold,
On a canvas of cloud impearled
Drawn with a brush of gold!

VII.

If I lure, as a mocking sprite,
I give, as a goddess bestows,
The red, with its soul of might,
And the blue, with its cool repose;
The yellow that beckons and beams,
And the gentler children they bear;
For the portal of Art's high dreams
Is builded of Light and Air!





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