DANCE not your spectral dance at me; I know you well! Along this lane there lives no tree But I can tell. I know each fall and rise and twist; You -- why, a wildflower in the mist, The moon, the mist. Sound not that long alarm, gray tower, I know you well; This is your habit at this hour, You and your bell! If once, I heard a hundred times Through evening's ambuscade your chimes -- Dark tower, your chimes. Enforce not that no-meaning so, Familiar stream; Whether you tune it high or low, I know your theme; A proud-fed but a puny rill, A meadow brook, poured quick and shrill -- Alone and shrill. Sprawl not so monster-like, blind mist; I know not "seems"; I am too old a realist To take sea-dreams From you, or think a great white Whale Floats through our hawthorn-scented vale -- This foam-cold vale. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER' by GEORGE GORDON BYRON TO MY HONOURED FRIEND DR. CHARLETON by JOHN DRYDEN NOCTURNE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TWO VOICES by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN A SONG OF APPLE-BLOOM by GORDON BOTTOMLEY THE BOY AND THE ANGEL by ROBERT BROWNING |