Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ASOLANDO: PROLOGUE, by ROBERT BROWNING Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: The poet's age is sad: for why? Last Line: "god is it who transcends." Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Time | ||||||||
"THE Poet's age is sad: for why? In youth, the natural world could show No common object but his eye At once involved with alien glow -- His own soul's iris-bow. "And now a flower is just a flower: Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man -- Simply themselves, uncinct by dower Of dyes which, when life's day began, Round each in glory ran." Friend, did you need an optic glass, Which were your choice? A lens to drape In ruby, emerald, chrysopras, Each object -- or reveal its shape Clear outlined, past escape, The naked very thing? -- so clear That, when you had the chance to gaze, You found its inmost self appear Through outer seeming -- truth ablaze, Not falsehood's fancy-haze? How many a year, my Asolo, Since -- one step just from sea to land -- I found you, loved yet feared you so -- For natural objects seemed to stand Palpably fire-clothed! No -- No mastery of mine o'er these! Terror with beauty, like the Bush Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees, Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tush! Silence 't is awe decrees. And now? The lambent flame is -- where? Lost from the naked world: earth, sky, Hill, vale, tree, flower, -- Italia's rare O'er-running beauty crowds the eye -- But flame? The Bush is bare. Hill, vale, tree, flower -- they stand distinct, Nature to know and name. What then? A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked Fancy from fact: see, all's in ken: Has once my eyelid winked? No, for the purged ear apprehends Earth's import, not the eye late dazed. The Voice said, "Call my works thy friends! At Nature dost thou shrink amazed? God is it who transcends." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEVEN EYES: FINAL SECTION by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: COME OCTOBER by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: HOME by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN SLOWLY: I FREQUENTLY SLOWLY WISH by LYN HEJINIAN ALL THE DIFFICULT HOURS AND MINUTES by JANE HIRSHFIELD A DAY IS VAST by JANE HIRSHFIELD FROM THIS HEIGHT by TONY HOAGLAND CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME' by ROBERT BROWNING |
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