Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE COVERT, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I always thought to find my love Last Line: As ever hailed the spring. Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund Subject(s): England; Landscape; English | ||||||||
I ALWAYS thought to find my love In some grove's ancient lair Where though all day my steps might rove No one beside would fare: Among the small forgotten woods With clambering ivy laden, By ridings lost in bramble hoods I haunted for my maiden. The greenest places I could find, Where underwoods are free To flourish like the taller kind, Seemed homes where she might be. And nothing but the loitering brook Or bee with question rude Notice of my intrusion took Or felt my solitude. The brook's eye mirrored me and seemed With my own thoughts to shine, The bee patrolling where I dreamed Grumbled for countersign. "And are not maidens fair to see In every green and town? Why go you wooing secretly Through paths none travel down? Why stare you on the sunny grove Like pale ghosts on moonlight? But madness there will find a love And then be shut from sight." Daphne from Phoebus fled of old And grew into a tree, And all the loves of heaven, I hold, On earth now prisoned be. And it may be, from earth or air, My longing shall unsphere Beauty that only Daphnes wear, And so I tarry here -- Is there no spell upon this gloom So radiant, cool and green, As promises the sudden bloom Of the loveliest ever seen? I know not how or when the One Shall come -- long have I gazed -- But shining like the vital sun Till even the wood's amazed, The flower of cool and flower of bright And flower of woman too, In the green dusk a dazzling light Yet sweet as manna-dew: Gliding into seen Form, where she A locked-up secret lay, From tingling air, from sighing tree -- This Love shall crown my day. -- Thus murmured to himself the boy Where all the spinneys ring With as rich syllables of joy As ever hailed the spring. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NINETEEN FORTY by NORMAN DUBIE GHOSTS IN ENGLAND by ROBINSON JEFFERS STAYING UP FOR ENGLAND by LIAM RECTOR STONE AND FLOWER by KENNETH REXROTH THE HANGED MAN by KENNETH REXROTH ENGLISH TRAIN COMPARTMENT by JOHN UPDIKE ALMSWOMEN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |
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