Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UMBRAE PUELLULARUM, by WILLIAM ROSE BENET


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UMBRAE PUELLULARUM, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The memories of little maids
Last Line: The memories of little maids!


The memories of little maids
Are rosy round this gray old earth.
Heroes its glories, these the shades
Of tender evenings, sunrise mirth.

The blue wild lilacs on the dunes
Nod breeze-blown toward a lustred sea.
The seashore's faint-hummed morning tunes
Sing little maidens, young and free.

The sun-blaze on the shifting blue
Shimmers a phantom down the sands
Where Phoenix' daughter strays anew
Trailing arbutus in her hands;

Yet not as 'neath those cliffs whereunder
Her children playmates shrank and cried
When, bellowing o'er the breakers' thunder,
The white bull threshed the rushing tide.

Dawn on such heights as Tabor's mountain
Shows a child Deborah glad and free;
Rainbows on every sobbing fountain,
A tearless bright Callirrhoe.

I seek not one as Night's sad daughter,
Nor one in Sisera's camp on high
When sunset flames with swords of slaughter
And bannered armies mass the sky.

Only as little maidens, gaily
At play by wood and waterfall,
Hillside and sea, I dream them daily
And hear their happy voices call.

Their songs rejoice when morn rejoices.
They murmur home through evening's shades:
The cherished ghosts of children's voices,
The memories of little maids!





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