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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM AT CLIFTON, by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Long have I racked my brains for rhymes to please Last Line: Forgive, and shut these pages up for ever. Subject(s): Books; Forgiveness; Longing; Poetry & Poets; Story-telling; Travel; Women; Reading; Clemency; Journeys; Trips | |||
LONG have I racked my brains for rhymes to please, But vainly, for the time doth grow upon me, And throw the lights and shadows of reality Thro' my mind's cavern, melting in its glare The fairy-like inhabitants of twilight Which I essayed to summon. Even so It came to pass, as I have heard it told, As once a lady's grace and gentleness, That shed soft beauty over every one Standing around her,like to spirits summoned That must so wait and gaze, but dared not step Within the circled halo of the charmer, Lent to an almost unknown traveller A book whose leaves are heavy with the music Of poetry such as she loved to read, For poetry was her life's element Which she shook from her, lightly breaking up The current of men's thought, wherein this world Was pictured drearily, into fair dimples, As doth a curled swan silently roving Thro' the reflection of a haunted palace Upon a musically enchanted stream. And on those pages where her eyes would dwell She had permitted the world-wandering stranger To leave a token of his poor existence: And now, enclosed in his guest-chamber, Holding the magic volume which contained The charms to raise the memory of the gone Out of the night that had closed over them, The Traveller, grateful for so sweet a task, Fain would have spellbound Fiction's fairest shapes, And sent them captive to pay homage there. But all in vain: the truth was restless in him, And shook his visionary fabrics down, As one who had been buried long ago And now was called up by a necromancer To answer dreadful questions. So compelled, he left the way of fiction and wrote thus: 'Woe unto him whose fate hath thwarted him, Whose life has been 'mongst such as are not born, To cherish in his bosom reverence, And the calm awe that comforteth the heart And lulls the yearnings of hope unfulfilled: Such have I been. And woe again to him Who, in too late an hour, presumptuously O'erhears a wish confessing to his soul, And must dismiss it to his discontent With scorn and laughter. Woe again to me! For now I hear even such an anxious voice Crying in my soul's solitude, and bewailing That I had never in my childhood known The bud of this manifold beauteousness, And seen each leaf turn of its tender hinge Until the last few parted scarce, and held Deep in their midst a heaven-reflecting gem; For then I mightoh vain and flattering wish? I might have stood, tho' last, among the friends Where I am now the last among the strangers, And not have passed away, as now I must, Into forgetfulness, into the cold Of the open, homeless world without a hope, Unless it be of pardon for these words: For what it's to the moon that every drop Of flower-held rain reflects and gazes on her! Her destiny is in the starry heavens, Theirs here upon the ground, and she doth set, Leaving her shadow no more to delight them, And cometh ne'er again till they are fled. So is't with me. Yet to have seen, tho' seldom, And to have fed me on that beauty's light, And to have been allowed to trace these thoughts, Are undeserved favours from my fortune.' _____ Such were the import of his lines, which many Would have rejected with a scornful smile, But if she smiled, smiled pity. She was gentle; Read and forgave, and never thought again On the presumptuous stranger and his lines. Away! I should have told a better tale. Forgive, and shut these pages up for ever. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...RICHARD, WHAT'S THAT NOISE? by RICHARD HOWARD LOOKING FOR THE GULF MOTEL by RICHARD BLANCO RIVERS INTO SEAS by LYNDA HULL DESTINATIONS by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN THE ONE WHO WAS DIFFERENT by RANDALL JARRELL THE CONFESSION OF ST. JIM-RALPH by DENIS JOHNSON SESTINA: TRAVEL NOTES by WELDON KEES TO H. B. (WITH A BOOK OF VERSE) by MAURICE BARING BALLAD OF HUMAN LIFE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: DIRGE FOR WOLFRAM by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: SAILORS' [OR MARINERS'] SONG by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |
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