Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE GREAT ELM, by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: From a friend's house had I gone forth Last Line: Came creeping o'er the wold. Alternate Author Name(s): Bridges, Robert+(2) Subject(s): Elm Trees | ||||||||
FROM a friend's house had I gone forth, And wandering at will O'er a wide country West and North Without or vale or hill, I came beneath the broken edge Of higher sloping ground, Where an old Giant from the ledge O'erlook'd the landscape round: A towering Elm that stood alone, Last of an ancient rank, And had great barky roots out-thrown To buttress up the bank; His rough trunk of two hundred years In girth a pillar gave As massive as the Norman piers That rise in Durham's nave; But this for stony roof and wall Upliving timber held, Where never in its forest tall Had woodman lopp'd or fell'd: Above its crown no wind so fierce Had warp'd the shapely green, And scarce with bated breath might pierce Its caves of leafy screen. It seem'd in that dark foliage laid Suspended thought must dwell; As in those boughs that overshade The river-sides of Hell, That fabled Elm of Acheron, Within the gates of death, Which once Æneas look'd upon As Virgil witnesseth Whose leafage the last refuge was And haven of mortal dreams, That clustering clung thereto because They might not pass the streams. Now suddenly was I aware That on the grassy shelf A spirit was waiting for me there, A coy seraphic elf My other half-self, whom I miss In life's familiar moods, And ken of only by his kiss In sacred solitudes; And for that rare embrace have borne With Fate and things distraught, The wanhope of my days forlorn, My sins, have counted nought. He is of such immortal kind, His inwit is so clean, So conscient with the eternal Mind The self of things unseen, That when within his world I win, Nor suffer mortal change, I am of such immortal kin No dream is half so strange. Alas, I have done myself great wrong Truckling to human care, Am shamed to ken myself so strong And nobler than I dare: And yet so seldom doth he grant The comfort of his grace, So fickle is he and inconstant To any time or place, That since he chose that place and time To come again to me, I'd hold him fast by magic rhyme Forever to that tree: As there in lavish self-delight, Godlike and single-souled, I lay until the dusk of night Came creeping o'er the wold. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: DOW BRITT by EDGAR LEE MASTERS ELMS by LOUISE ELIZABETH GLUCK ELM; FOR RUTH FAINLIGHT by SYLVIA PLATH VELLEN THE TREE by WILLIAM BARNES A PASSER-BY by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES |
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