From a great voyage I come again and from the limits of the plain, gay hunter who through heaven doth chase while ruminating roundelays. Tarantara! on my shoulders, ah! I bear venison . . . Tarantara! Not much but I can say with reason 'tis good considering the season. Margot, within her rosy room, flushed with her hope's effulgent light, practices Grieg, the selfsame tune I heard her playing yesternight. With shouldered gun, to hear I pause. The tune my ear already reaches. Day, in the shelter of the beeches, swift her obscuring curtain draws. The scolding wind of autumn comes, shakes the green barrier to and fro . . . the petals of geraniums through the wide-open doorway blow. A ring its tangled maze doth weave, on ivory keys to quench its fires, on a theme of Chopin, the desires of my fond heart, the tranquil eve. The ring upon her fleeting hand in the player's shadow veils its spark, as, dropped behind the forests dark, the sun has vanished from the land. A joyous cry awakes you. 'Tis your heart's deep instinct thus expressed. I'm there, against the trellises in a gay hunter's costume dressed. New trills, like mad, tumultuous words, unknown to these composerchaps, simulate mockeries of birds . . . towards that great gun of mine, perhaps. But to your hand that trembles there in the last rays of evening light, uplifted towards me, blue and white, whistling, I give a slaughtered hare. "Oh, Nimrod, did it cost a lot? -- Hmm! . . . Be that as it may. Pile high the kitchen fire, put on the pot. And let them hang me if I lie." The sky is one great emerald from south to septentrion. "Ah, fie on such quarry! What, a hare, Nimrod? Another time 'twill be a lion." Piqued, "Play me some Lecocq," I beg. I break the shell of my boiled egg. From a great voyage I come again and from the limits of the plain. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CHANT OF THE VULTURES by EDWIN MARKHAM THE DONKEY by GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON HEART'S-EASE by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY by JOHN MILTON TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT (ON HER BIRTHDAY, 1723) by ALEXANDER POPE THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 74. ST. LUKE THE PAINTER (OLD & NEW ART) by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI |