FAR on the gray sea glooms and glowers, Far off the salt winds vaguely stray, And through the long monotonous hours My thoughts go wandering on their way; Go back to find that earlier time When, lingering by a bluer sea, A poet wooed me with his rhyme, And all the world was changed for me. The winds to music strange were set, The sunsets glowed with sudden flame, And all the shining sands were wet With waves that whispered as they came, And told a tender low-breathed tale Of love that always should be young; Dear love that should not change or fail, -- Such love as love-lorn bards have sung. Pale roses bloomed by that far sea, And shivered at the sea-wind's breath; A bird flew low, and sang to me -- "The end of love and life is death." I left the pale rose where it grew; I would not heed the warning bird; Of all the world I, only, knew How sweet the music I had heard, -- How dear the love, how true the truth My poet uttered in his rhyme; And how it gave me back my youth In that deep-hearted summer-time. Then winter came; the pale rose died, And to the south the wise bird flew; And I -- ah me, the world is wide, And poets love while love is new. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DISAPPOINTED by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR ENGLAND IN 1819 by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY LINES TO A NASTURTIUM (A LOVER MUSES) by ANNE SPENCER WALT WHITMAN'S CAUTION by WALT WHITMAN A SERIOUS REFLECTION ON HUMAN LIFE, SELECTION by HENRY BAKER THE FESTUBERT SHRINE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 39. FAREWELL TO JULIET (1) by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |