AH, lovely Spirit, in the first fond dusk-light gleaming, In the first purple hue that cloaks the harsh uneasy coast, Come near, cast off thy cloud, confront with thine my spirit, Step from thy secret place, fern-hidden, dewsprent and moss'd, Slide by Death's sentry ghost And come. Only at evening, or at dun-feather'd fall of night, When but the owl whimpers and wails over stooping graves And sleepy bodies, only now may I see thee, putting by Time's grossness, the body's lusts, the world that guiles and enslaves, Pity that whines, pain that raves. There where they sleep the wrinkled streets are silent as these Green grass-ways of Death; spirit with laboured body hushes, The wind hears no echo, the hound quails fearing to howl.— Here, lovely Spirit, awake, part with thy pale hand the rushes Where the winter-long wave yet gushes. Distant by day art thou, even thy memory fades deceiving, Images of thee tremble and hide in smiling women's eyes. False every image: so February's bird deludes with Spring, So even Spring nurses man's hope on ancient, wanton lies, So mutters sleep false lullabies. But thou, the Nameless, mortal-immortal, of earth and of heaven Mistress, inheritor—come! Brush my lips with dew-shining lock. Time bends low, a wan star sinking, thought neath its burden falls. Smite, smite again, thou strong lovely Spirit, on earth's rooted rock, And still Death's old, shallow mock. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DARKLING THRUSH by THOMAS HARDY WAR AND WASHINGTON by JONATHAN MITCHELL SEWALL THE SOUL'S DEFIANCE by LAVINIA STONE STODDARD L. OF G.'S PURPORT by WALT WHITMAN OVERTURE TO A DANCE OF LOCOMOTIVES by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS I DREAM I'M LEAVING by MARGARET AHO |