Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. A SUMMER DAY, by EDWARD CARPENTER



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. A SUMMER DAY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Seeing once again the ethereal blue of the sky
Last Line: Dream-walking, till at length the real day may dawn.
Subject(s): Beauty; Summer


SEEING once again the ethereal blue of the sky—the limpid air—the
all-enfolding sunlight,
Here in the great tumultuous abounding city, or again in the far woods
among the fallen oak-boles and the fox-gloves,
The far floating ever haunting shimmer of uncaught beauty:—
I recognise that in all and everywhere it is the same;
Somehow to hold and have this in oneself—
This light and everlasting space,
This real eternal, whence the sensible light and space are born—
Somehow to hold from all things still a little aloof for this;
No rock that stands above the river's edge—but that which illumines
the rock;
No brown sail in the bay—but the sweet undirected air that wafts it;
No pleasure, but the greater which lets the pleasure go or come;
Not anything, but that which brings to all things grace and light.

Still the far clouds just rim the Western sky—domed masses clear
above, below lost in the summer haze:
So vast the orb of heaven enfolds the earth—the rocks and seas and
rivers—and the dream-walking millions of the earth;
So vast the soul of every man enfolds his mortal deeds and thoughts,
Deeds, thoughts, desires, confused and contrary, vexing each other and
vexed, in myriads, every shade and color, form and tongue, strange wanderers,
Dream-walking, till at length the real day may dawn.





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