Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN, by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Parched were my lips with drought of noon Last Line: The glory that might have been.' Alternate Author Name(s): Ramal, Walter; De La Mare, Walter | ||||||||
Parched were my lips with drought of noon, Broken my feet, in broken shoon, The sun shone fierce and leonine On the salt, salt sea. But fell at length cool eventide On barren wave, spread waste and wide, On spike-grassed, whispering dunes of sand, And soft-ebbed twilight on that land -- The land of Might-have-been. Chill sighed the wind on cheek and hair, A region bare and bleak, yet fair, Fair with its sparse-strewn, dry-root flowers, Its siren-singing haunted bowers, The silence of those long, long hours That stuff no mortal year. Of silver and untroubled sheen Hung in the West's crystalline green A planet ne'er by mortal seen, Named 'Never', sweet and clear. A thin brook gushed o'er stones hard-by, 'Forsaken' it babbled; lone was I; Night's oriental canopy Tented the eastern sky. Shade that I was in dream waylaid, Benighted, and yet unafraid, I sate me there, all sorrows fled, And whispered to the sea The thousand songs I had hoped to sing When I on earth was wandering, Whereof, alas! poor words could bring Nought but a deadened echoing Of 'Benedicite!' Sweeter than any note men hear When, latticed in by moonbeams clear, The bird of the darkness to its fere Tells out love's mystery, Rose in my throat and poured its dew -- That hymn of praise -- my being through; Gave peace to a heart that never knew Peace until then, I ween. No listener mine, mayhap; but ne'er Trolled happier wight in heaven fair To a lyre of golden string. Nought but a soundless voice was I Beneath that deep, unvoyaged sky, Silence and silence telling o'er What makes the stars to sing. O vanity of age to mourn What youth in folly left forlorn! Doth not earth's strange and lovely mean Only, 'Come, see, O son of man, All that you hoped, the nought you can -- The glory that might have been.' | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ALONE (2) by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE AN EPITAPH by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE ARABIA by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE BUNCHES OF GRAPES by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE ECHO by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE ENGLAND (2) by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE FARE WELL by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE FIVE EYES by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE JOHN MOULDY by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE MOTLEY by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE |
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