Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. BY LAKE WACHUSETT, by EDWARD CARPENTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. BY LAKE WACHUSETT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The night-breeze murmurs odorous through the wild
Last Line: Souls winged and equipped for freedom.
Subject(s): Fish & Fishing; Freedom; Wachusett (mountain), Massachusetts; Anglers; Liberty


THE night-breeze murmurs odorous through the wild chestnuts where Lake
Wachusett lies embowered in trees;
The moon shines over the mountains not other than when the wild man walked
them;
The crickets and frogs cry shrill, the bull-frog twangs his bass, and the
firefly shines fitful among the bushes;
While solitary in his boat the fisher is known by his lamp gleaming over
the water.

Murmured as in a dream I catch the import of creation.
Like a far-off sound which the attentive listener mistakes not:
Through the chirruping of the crickets and high fluting of the frogs,
through the lull of the breeze and the voice of the fisherman singing across the
lake—through the calls of the Indians faintly lingering still among the
laurel and pine tangles—
Through the face of the moon leaning down from the sky, and the fitful
bird-eluding flash of the firefly—
Nay, through the remembered faces and calls of the city, and all sights and
sounds—
Still I catch the old old theme, the theme of birth and deliverance.

Tremble on O breeze overhead, tremble O prince of love, with thy wings the
whole universe overshadowing,
Calling Thou from their hidden dwelling-places the souls of men to their
deliverance:
Where they lie hidden in the waters calling, or fitful in the air
flashing—or in all strange elusive forms hiding vainly their birth-marks,
yet by Thy voice discovered;
Where by the solitary lamp upon the lake, after trout and pickerel, or upon
the pavements of cities, or with the moon through the mild night, or on the
gleaming water-surfaces with cool gurgling throats—
Eluding, grotesque—still to thy voice they answer unwitting.

Tremble on O breeze glittering dissolving all things
transparent—tremble O prince of love with thy wings all things
overshadowing:
Calling invoking out of chaos, out of the mad jumble and whirligig of the
world, through all destinies and forms and long agelong preparations—
Souls winged and equipped for freedom.





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