Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TWO PROMENADES SENTIMENTALES: 1. RAIN, by EDITH SITWELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TWO PROMENADES SENTIMENTALES: 1. RAIN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Beside the smooth black lacquer sea
Last Line: Embodied in this ghostly hour. . . .
Subject(s): Rain


BESIDE the smooth black lacquer sea
You and I move aimlessly.

The grass is springing pale, alone,
Tuneless as a quartertone. . . .

Remote your face seems, far away
Beneath the ghostly water, Day,

That laps across you, rustling loud --
Until you seem a muslined cloud

Beneath your fluted hat's ghost-flowers --
The little dog that runs and cowers

Black as Beelzebub, now tries
To catch the white lace butterflies. . . .

But we are mute and move again
Across the wide and endless plain,

Vague as the little nachreous breeze
That plays with gilt rococo seas.

We are two ghosts to-day -- each ghost
For ever wandering and lost;

No yesterday and no to-morrow
Know we -- neither joy nor sorrow,

For this is the hour when like a swan
The silence floats, so still and wan,

That bird-songs, silver masks to hide
Strange faces, now all sounds have died,

Find but one curdled sheepskin flower
Embodied in this ghostly hour. . . .





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