Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A FAVOURITE SCENE; RECALLED ON LOOKING AT BIRKET FOSTER'S LANDSCAPE, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Hauntest thou so my waking and my sleeping Last Line: Where boding beauty sighs alas! Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund Subject(s): Landscape; Paintings & Painters | ||||||||
HAUNTEST thou so my waking and my sleeping, Darling of solitude, Arcadian grace, Round these long stony ruins of absence peeping, My Naiad; even more, my nymphal race Budded at once, all, all congendering, And at one glad look new-rendering Whatever joy in tree is dreaming, in meadow sauntering, in freshet leaping? As in the dance, when this one makes advance, The other too with answering gesture moves, I as I hear thee singing would singing near thee And mate and imitate those spells that endear thee -- Which old Time bowering in thy dell approves, And spares to do thee wrong, Himself slow murmuring round, as though newfound, Thy fountain-song. Thy spirit self, perfume and dew and breeze Of unknown birth but lovely, hovers now Before my sense, that copies as it sees, And like thee strives to glide and float and bow; To such a daedal dancer Would make a faultless answer -- But where's the fresh enchantment? the serene Undulant omnipresence of the queen? Dear stranger, rarer than Sabrina, stay, And kindly lead the shepherd's holiday; And from thy simple adornings make May-mornings, For one who stumbles through a thorny way. Thou ne'er yet hast deserted him, Who, though his eyes with weeping swim, Would marvel on thy waters' brim, And still has misty-bright esteems Of all thy trances shy and sacred, thy pure streams. Lament it not as though October gloom With thunder's glare malign and brutal boom Struck thy bombarded beauty, when his swarthy And clownish measures all unworthy Strive in thy own delight to dance before thee! There, he cries, the willow dips Her rainy hair in the falling fount, And there the silvery songbird sips And steps on stones whose gems I'll count; The frolic wind that ranged too long The hot hay-field, he sips to-day, And runs again renewed and strong To kiss the lasses in the hay; The ripple silvers rings on rings Where one small water-darling springs, And He that knew how lilies grew And without beauty's frown outshone The panoplies of Solomon, O had He seen this retinue Of rosy-petalled sauntering joys That in the water swirl or poise -- Most him who with his blue-zoned mail Follows the idle kings that sail In worlds scarce deeper than the glass Where boding beauty sighs Alas! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...1801: AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE ENVOY TO CONSTANTINOPLE by RICHARD HOWARD VENETIAN INTERIOR, 1889 by RICHARD HOWARD THERE IS A GOLD LIGHT IN CERTAIN OLD PAINTINGS by DONALD JUSTICE DUTCH INTERIORS by JANE KENYON INVITATION TO A PAINTER: 3 by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM THE CHINA PAINTERS by TED KOOSER ELEGY FOR SOL LEWITT by ANN LAUTERBACH ON THE SEPARATION OF ADAM AND EVE by TIMOTHY LIU ALMSWOMEN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |
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