A July ghost, aghast at the strange winter, Wonders, at burning noon, (all summer seeming), How, like a sad thought buried in light words, Winter, an alien presence, is ambushed here. See, from the fire-fountained noon there creep Lazy yellow ardours towards pale evening, Dragging the sun across the shell of thought. A web threaded with fading fire. Futile and fragile lure! All July walks her floors that roof this ice, My frozen heart the summer cannot reach, Hidden as a root from air, or star from day. A frozen pool whereon mirth dances Where the shining boys would fish. Amorous to woo the golden kissing sun, Your flaunting green hoods bachic eyes And flower-flinging hands, Show quaint as in some frolic masker's whim, Or painted ruby on a dead white rose. Deriding those blind who slinked past God And their untasked inheritance, (Whose sealed eyes trouble not the sun) With a thought of Maytime once, And Maytime dances; Of a dim pearl-faery boat And golden glimmerings; Waving white hands that ripple lakes of sadness Until the sadness vanishes and the stagnant pool remains. Pitiless I am, for I bind thee, laughter's apostle, Even as thy garland's glance, and thy soul is merry, to see How in night-hanging forest of eating maladies, A frozen forest of moon-unquiet madness The moon-drunk, haunted, pierced soul, dies. Tarnished and arid, dead before it dies. Starved by its Babel folly, stark it lies, Stabbed by life's jealous eyes. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: JACOB GODBEY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TO A CHILD DANCING IN THE WIND: 2 by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 47. AL-HAKIM by EDWIN ARNOLD URANIA; THE WOMAN IN THE MOON: THE FIRST CANTO, OR NEW MOON by WILLIAM BASSE CHORUS OF A SONG THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY ALBERT CHEVALIER by HENRY MAXIMILIAN BEERBOHM |