NEAR my bed, there, hangs the picture jewels could not buy from me: 'T is a Siren, a brown Siren, in her sea-weed drapery, Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a sea. In the east, the rose of morning seems as if 't would blossom soon, But it never, never blossoms, in this picture; and the moon Never ceases to be crescent, and the June is always June. And the heavy-branched banana never yields its creamy fruit; In the citron-trees are nightingales forever stricken mute; And the Siren sits, her fingers on the pulses of the lute. In the hushes of the midnight, when the heliotropes grow strong With the dampness, I hear music -- hear a quiet, plaintive song -- A most sad, melodious utterance, as of some immortal wrong -- Like the pleading, oft repeated, of a Soul that pleads in vain, Of a damned Soul repentant, that would fain be pure again!-- And I lie awake and listen to the music of her pain. And whence comes this mournful music? -- whence, unless it chance to be From the Siren, the brown Siren, in her sea-weed drapery, Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a sea. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CHILD'S FIRST GRIEF by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS ODE ON SOLITUDE (FINAL PRINTED VERSION) by ALEXANDER POPE COME UP FROM THE FIELDS FATHER by WALT WHITMAN THE SUPPLIANTS: THE WORLD'S HARMONIOUS PLAN by AESCHYLUS OUR HERITAGE by ISIDORE G. ASCHER THREE PICTURES by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE PRAYERS OF SAINTS by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON |