FAINT, faint and clear, Faint as the music that in dreams we hear Shaking the curtain-fold of sleep, That shuts away The world's hoarse voice, the sights and sounds of day, Her sorry joys, her phantoms false and fleet, -- So softly, softly stirs The wind's low murmur in the rippled wheat. From west to east The warm breath blows, the slender heads droop low As if in prayer; Again, more lightly tossed in merry play, They bend and bow and sway With measured beat, But never rest, -- through shadow and through sun Goes on the tender rustle of the wheat. Dreams more than sleep Fall on the listening heart and lull its care; Dead years send back Some treasured, unforgotten tune. Ah, long ago, When sun and sky were sweet, In happy noon, We stood breast-high, mid waves of ripened grain, And heard the wind make music in the wheat. Not for to-day-- Not for this hour alone--the melody So soft and ceaseless thrills the dreamer's ear: Of all that was and is, of all that yet shall be, It holds a part. Love, sorrow, longing, pain, The restlessness that yearns, The thirst that burns, The bliss that like a fountain overflows, The deep repose, Good that we might have known, but shall not know, The hope God took, the joy He made complete, -- Life's chords all answer from the windswept wheat! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SPIRITUAL by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR NATURE; SONNET by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW TRANSITION by MIRIAM BARRANGER INTIMATE VISION by JOSEPHINE BATES THE UNKNOWN WOMAN by ALEXANDER (ALEKSANDR) ALEXANDROVICH BLOK |