You sit like silent magicians. From serpentine shining threads of silver You draw, with implacable prophetic fingers, Sentient secrets from out the dim laboratories Of star-born destiny Wherein man's fleeting life-spans are so torturously wrought. You sit like Chinese images; But for all that you seem not to see, You hear -- your ears like tiny dynamos of vivid perfectness Are alive: They perceive the whispered agonies; The psychic vibrations; the ebb and flow, As mate calls to mate; as friend to friend Cries out for succor from the engulfing darkness Of relentless separations. Over mountains and prairies; Through the wind-tossed arms of moaning forests; Over calm deserts dedicated to eternal beauty; Indifferent to the assaults of revengeful thunderbolts; Unscathed by the liquid fires of azure-hilted lightning scimitars That score the dark vaults of heaven with transient gleaming frescoes; Swifter than floating aerial ribbons -- bridal wreaths of the sky -- The winding pennants of the wild geese, drifting fog banks, And gossamer rifts of gauze-kissed clouds; Outrunning the wind; out-distancing the multitudinous shafts of fragrant rain; They come -- millions and millions of heart secrets -- Through unknown lanes of virginal air Bordered by the maiden star-flowers of heaven And guarded by the signal fires of Orion and of Arabian-historied Algol! Your ears touch and hold them -- Your listening fingers perceive them; They quicken into material life Under the influence of your pregnant magic; -- Hidden thoughts from the hidden hearts of unknown men and women! They achieve reality by the chemistry of your art; In their long flight through the air they have been made real! Your mask-like faces are calm; They commit no betrayals of your trust. Only a shadow from the purple-fringed mantles of mystery Has cast a tiny cloud from its floating draperies About your quiet eyes and touched your patient glance with irony. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FALCONER OF GOD by WILLIAM ROSE BENET THE ROSE-BUD; TO A YOUNG LADY by WILLIAM BROOME RHAPSODY ON A WINDY NIGHT by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT THE TARRY BUCCANEER by JOHN MASEFIELD THE LAMENTATION OF GLUMDALCLITCH FOR THE LOSS OF GRILDRIG by ALEXANDER POPE SWORD AND BUCKLER; OR, SERVING-MAN'S DEFENCE: INTRODUCTION by WILLIAM BASSE THE ELDER WOMAN'S SONG: 4, FR. KING LEAR'S WIFE by GORDON BOTTOMLEY |