Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ASH POOL, by ANONYMOUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ASH POOL, by                    
First Line: The wet wind sobs o'er the sodden leas
Last Line: A curse hangs over the great ash pool
Subject(s): Grief; Sorrow;sadness


THE wet wind sobs o'er the sodden leas,
And wails through the branches of leafless trees,
As mourning the seeds in the fallows lost,
And the pale buds peeping to die in the frost,
When Winter asserts his lingering reign,
And his sceptre glitters on hill and plain.
Drearily meadows and uplands lie
'Neath the low long sweep of sullen sky,
And, sad and still as the hushed green Yule,
'Neath the straggling boughs lies the Great Ash Pool.

Black and cold, and stagnant and deep,
No silvery fins from its waters leap;
No brown wings flutter, no pattering feet,
Tell that life in its banks finds safe retreat;
No lily-buds to its surface cling,
But docken and nightshade around it spring;
The very trees that about it stand
Are twisted and gnarled as by witches' hand,
And the ghost of a story of sin and dule
Like a mist hangs over the Great Ash Pool.

When June's soft magic is on the earth,
And the rose and the violet spring to birth,
When the bright becks dance 'neath the bright leaves' shade,
And the wild birds carol from glen and glade,
Not a sunbeam glints on its breast to play,
Not a murmur welcomes the golden day,
No children loiter beside its brink,
No shy fawn lingers its wave to drink;
The old tree's shadow is deep and cool,
Yet no lovers keep tryst at the Great Ash Pool.

Yet once by its waters wild vows were spoken,
In passion heard and in falsehood broken,
Two bright heads over its margin bent,
When the moon to its depths soft radiance lent;
A little while and one face lay there,
With its blue eyes glazed in their last despair, --
Eyes that stared upward through weed and slime,
With their story of sorrow, and shame, and crime;
So, in glory of summer, or gladness of Yule,
A curse hangs over the Great Ash Pool.





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