"You are artists, Nomads of Beauty." —"Flamings." For you—ancestral acres, And, choked, the graveyard waits. For us, the free forsakers,— The camp that Beauty fates. For us—the daily treason, The tents we daily flee, Mocked by each dawning season Of our captivity. Believe the dimmer distance, All curtains: magic veils, All Springtides' green persistence, Whole heaven's vasty gales! Oh, vagrant artists, shepherd Your droves of dreams unbound; And sow, although you jeopard The soon-abandoned ground. And from your open spaces Rush down, a whirling horde, Where slaves tamed to the traces Adore their overlord. Trample their Edens, plow them, Oh, Attila, with scars. And grow—to Beauty vow them— Your steppe flowers like stars. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BIRTH OF VENUS by HAYDEN CARRUTH UPON HIS PICTURE by THOMAS RANDOLPH IF I GROW OLD by ETHEL BERRY ALLEN THE LAURELS ARE FELLED by THEODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE A MISUNDERSTANDING (CONNEMARA) by JANE BARLOW RECOGNITION by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |