IS it some shade from Paradise, Shut down beneath the clouding skies, This wandering voice that ever cries In its pathetic sweetness? Some loving soul that, leaning far To earth, where its lost treasures are, Fell from the casement of its star In meteoric fleetness. Lost Heaven, perchance to kiss a curl Tossed by some weeping boy or girl, Whose hapless tears its heart did twirl, 'Mid Empyrean praying. The rugged fir in Alpine blast Holds, too, the magic music fast, And mystic shadows round me cast In its majestic swaying. Is it some sylvan sprite who strays And seeks for lost Arcadian days, Who, 'midst the moving branches plays His pipe's dolorous measure? Or some lone Ariel, still unbound, Who fills the tossing woods with sound, Forgotten on the Upper Ground, For necromantic pleasure? I hear the whispering music played Within the laurels' glossy shade; Is it some Daphne, still afraid, In arborescent hiding? And, too, the sea's continued roar Flings soft the magic sound ashore, Where breaks the wave in passion sore, And serpentinial gliding. Is it some Siren who hath pressed A beating heart to her cold breast, Who calls that lover, long at rest In this tempestuous sighing? The seas that shake the yellow sand, The waving trees, the sylvan land, This vagrant voice well understand, And whisper to its crying. Oh! wandering voice that brings unrest, My human soul had half oppressed, The pagan spirit in my breast, That answered to thy fashion! What is thy message, could I seek From thrall of this sad soul to break? And if this pagan heart could speak, What answer to thy passion? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JANUARY by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS TO SIR HENRY WOTTON (1) by JOHN DONNE IN ANSWER TO MR. POPE by ANNE FINCH ON MUSIC by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL A CANADIAN BOAT SONG; WRITTEN ON THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE by THOMAS MOORE UNDER THE SHADE OF THE TREES [MAY 10, 1863] by MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON |