Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DEDICATIONS AND INSCRIPTIONS: 7. FAREWELL TO WHITE-NIGHTS, by GORDON BOTTOMLEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DEDICATIONS AND INSCRIPTIONS: 7. FAREWELL TO WHITE-NIGHTS, by                 Poet's Biography
First Line: White-nights, white-nights, ah, name that stirs hushed singing
Last Line: And their grey tears drop softly in my heart.


WHITE-NIGHTS, White-Nights, ah, name that stirs hushed singing
In quivering thoughts, hid wings in heat-dimmed trees,
What of that low cool lily-garden clinging
Within the beech-wood's edge near clematis?
White-Nights, your dove-lulled peace,
Your privet-scented shade for us is o'er,
And, though we gather now your lovely bringing,
White-Nights, White-Nights, we come to you no more.

Ah, sister of the stars, by those tranced ways,
Still as a pale pool greets the dawn-touched dew,
Those ways of wonder came your litten face --
White as a flushed flower seen the dew-thrill through,
Some flower whose deepening hue
Seems life made strong by kind acceptable pain.
O, little valley of our silent days,
White-Nights, White-Nights, you live in us again.

How many passions in the world's dead years
Have gone to work the miracle of your eyes,
What longings changeless through still, bygone tears,
What raptures starry with low happy cries?
Faint unknown mysteries,
I claim them too since in you I have part;
In this fulfilment each old joy appears,
And their grey tears drop softly in my heart.





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