Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HOMESICKNESS, by HENRY BELLAMANN



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HOMESICKNESS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is a land so far away
Last Line: I must go back.
Subject(s): Homesickness


There is a land so far away,
Almost it seems never to have been.
There are dull rocks
And the brown flanks of barren hills.
There a listless stream
Waits in the shallows,
Nor desires the sea.

Old walls are rooted deep,
And gaunt houses sit upon their haunches
Like starved animals;
Sometimes their hollow windows
Show a wolfish gleam
In the heavy dark.

But I am kin to it.
The old-wife hills,
I am close kin to them.

Here the cloudy light
Circles on crystalline peaks,
And the soft fall of satin petals
Stirs wide eddies of perfume
In the emerald pools
Of walled gardens.
Here the delicate accent
Of bright waters
And the cadenced music
Of a gentle tongue
Float upon the air
And curl themselves in silence
As late sunlight
Fades in deep rivers.

The grapes have purpled many times
Against that wall.
I know the fountain's legend now
By heart;
The story of this gracious land
Is told.

Those harsh, time-eaten hills,
Like peasant women, stooped and shawled,
They crouch as though to warm themselves together;
They wait, as peasant women wait,
For their own sons.
I must go back to them;
I must go back.





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