Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


COLOR by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: A BLUE-BLACK NUBIAN PLUCKING ORANGES
Last Line: IN THAT OLD HEAVEN WHERE THINGS ARE WHAT THEY SEEM.
Subject(s): BEAUTY; BLACKS;

A blue-black Nubian plucking oranges
At Jaffa by a sea of malachite
In red tarboosh, green sash, and flowing white
Burnous -- among the shadowy memories
That haunt me yet by these bleak Northern seas
He lives for ever in my eyes' delight,
Bizarre, superb in young immortal might --
A god of old barbaric mysteries.

Maybe he lived a life of lies and lust:
Maybe his bones are now but scattered dust:
Yet, for a moment he was life supreme
Exultant and unchallenged: and my rhyme
Would set him safely out of reach of time
In that old heaven where things are what they seem.



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