Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, L'ENVOI, by SAMUEL VALENTINE COLE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

L'ENVOI, by                    
First Line: The blue above immeasurably deep
Last Line: O island of the vision and the voice!


THE blue above immeasurably deep,
And blue around for many a shimmering mile,
Where sky and sea unbosom all they keep,
In open secret, to the lonely Isle,—
Yea, as of old, when Christ's Apostle came,
And saw, and heard—there all things are the same.

O Isle of Visions, shall there be again
The open vision ever? Are the days
So evil that among all living men
None may interpret now the light that strays
Still earthward through the thin and wavering screen,—
None say, in rapt assurance, "I have seen"?

The cloud-built City—built of all things rare—
The many voices breaking on the shore,
The trumpets that run, blowing, down the air,—
These baffle our dull senses; evermore
We look and listen, and remain unstirred,
Waiting for some one who has seen and heard.

Perhaps he sleeps; perhaps the dream is on
Of things that were, and are, and still shall be,—
Stars, swords, white horses, piercèd hands; anon
The River and Tree of Life, and no more sea.
He will proclaim it, ere the age go quite,—
Our Poet, when the Angel whispers, "Write."

For he will find in common sights and sounds—
More keen than we to listen and to look—
Beauty and truth from the eternal bounds,
And he shall write them in his own new book,
And be the prophet-poet of our choice,
O Island of the Vision and the Voice!




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