SOMETIMES, when walls and occupation seem A prison merely, a dark barrier Between me everywhere And life, or the larger province of the mind, As dreams confined, As the trouble of a dream, I seek to make again a life long gone, To be My mind's approach and consolation, To give it form's lucidity, Resilient form, as porcelain pieces thrown In buried China by a wrist unknown, Or mirrored brigs upon Fowey sea. Then to my memory comes nothing great Of purpose, or debate, Or perfect end, Pomp, nor love's rapture, nor heroic hours to spend -- But most, and strangely, for long and so much have I seen, Comes back an afternoon Of a June Sunday at Elsfield, that is up on a green Hill, and there, Through a little farm parlour door, A floor Of red tiles and blue, And the air Sweet with the hot June sun cascading through The vine-leaves under the glass, and a scarlet fume Of geranium flower, and soft and yellow bloom Of musk, and stains of scarlet and yellow glass. Such are the things remain Quietly, and for ever, in the brain, And the things that they choose for history-making pass. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...YARROW REVISITED by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH VILLANELLE: AU RETOUR DU PRINTEMPS by PHILIP SCHUYLER ALLEN WHEN ZEPHRYS BLOW by SAMUEL TRAVERS CLOVER EUDOXIA: FIRST PICTURE by DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK YOUTH by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE POEM, SPOKEN BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, AUGUST, 1934 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON |