Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SIGHING TIME, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN



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THE SIGHING TIME, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The sighing time, the sighing time!
Last Line: The sighing time, the sighing time.
Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund
Subject(s): Sighs; Death; Dead, The


THE sighing time, the sighing time! ...
The old house mourns and shudders so;
And the bleak garrets' crevices
Like whirring distaffs utter dread;
Streams of shadow people go
By hollow stairs and passages
In black cloths herding out their dead.
Along the creaking corridors
They troop with sighs, grayhead and young,
They droop their heads in bitter tears.
The panels yawn like charnel doors
Where the dark windows ivy-clung
Are gloating spiders' belvederes.
Without, like old Laocoon,
The yewtree claws the serpent gusts,
The wicket swings with peacock screams.
Time in the courtyard leans upon
His pausing scythe, in dim mistrusts
And sad recalls of summer dreams.
The garden, cynically sown
With leaves in death unlovely, bows
Its tragic plume of pipy stalks:
Poison-spores have overgrown
In crazy-coloured death-carouse
The parterres and the lovers' walks.
The anguished sun is swiftly set,
And Hesper's primrose coronal
Is sullied with distortions pale.
The grange bell in its minaret
With dreary three-times-dreary call Dingles in the gale.
The sighing time, the sighing time.





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