Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO CHILDREN: 5. DAME HOLIDAY, by WILLIAM ROSE BENET Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: No such a name as holiday I thought me to have found Last Line: Tell her I found her fond and fair, and that I loved her face! Subject(s): Children; Holidays; Childhood | ||||||||
No such a name as Holiday I thought me to have found Till I went forth this holy day beyond the city's round Of milling wheels and clanging bells Where smoke is dark and clamor swells, And wandered to the ground Of Holiday, Dame Holiday, Dressed in her best Dame Holiday, And in a fair compound! For grasses green and grasses blue Made o'er her dancing plat for new And arching skies of lovelier hue Walled round her dancing ground! No such a name as Holiday? She hath her acres yet! In cramosie and taffeta; and pranked with blooms, to laugh at a Poor grown-up dullard blinking small, she foots her dewy-wet And sun-warm pastures, curtsying sweet, with budding lips and twinkling feet! She whirled me through a merry dance -- Dame Holiday her clown! The fields reeled round our whirling waltz, the sun shook, laughing down; And odors out of Araby and gems and blooms of dream Swirled from her vivid, gracious gown with glow and glint and gleam! I crowned myself of holiday With sesame and rue. The world oped gates that holy day And nature passed me through! Old grandsire mountains leant their knees, and I was companied by trees To gaze upon the wrestling seas And look beyond the view! At Acre and Byzantium were wonders shown of old From looms, from mines, from vats, from vines rich spoils and manifold, But Holiday had wand for more Than ever man had seen before If that the truth were told! The little gnomes that work in mines, the folk of glades and trees, And butterflies like valentines, and boist'rous birds and bees We gathered for our retinue to dance and prance the hours through With mystery and history and worlds beyond the view! This rhyme be just for holiday. The world was colored then. The clouds went marching up the blue like hosts of fighting men. I carol out of tune and time O child, for you a failing rhyme -- Let fall my futile pen -- And reach my arms to Holiday, Dame Holiday, Dame Holiday -- Through walls to float to Holiday from moil and toil and men! No such a name as Holiday? This let my rhyme be worth: Go search for Mistress Holiday the ends of all the earth! Then, an' you find her dancing there In her wide countryside, And such rare sun and green and air as did to me betide, Then, an' you find her warm and rare In God's great garden-place -- Tell her I found her fond and fair, and that I loved her face! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE THREE CHILDREN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN CHILDREN SELECTING BOOKS IN A LIBRARY by RANDALL JARRELL COME TO THE STONE ... by RANDALL JARRELL THE LOST WORLD by RANDALL JARRELL A SICK CHILD by RANDALL JARRELL CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS ON THE DEATH OF FRIENDS IN CHILDHOOD by DONALD JUSTICE THE POET AT SEVEN by DONALD JUSTICE THE FALCONER OF GOD by WILLIAM ROSE BENET |
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