Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A DEAD LETTER: 1, by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A DEAD LETTER: 1, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I drew it from its china tomb
Last Line: And this old dusty letter.'
Alternate Author Name(s): Dobson, Austin
Subject(s): Letters


'A coeur blesse -- l'ombre et le silence.' -- H. DE BALZAC.

I

I DREW it from its china tomb; --
It came out feebly scented
With some thin ghost of past perfume
That dust and days had lent it.

An old, old letter, -- folded still!
To read with due composure,
I sought the sun-lit window-sill,
Above the grey enclosure,

That glimmering in the sultry haze,
Faint-flowered, dimly shaded,
Slumbered like Goldsmith's Madam Blaize,
Bedizened and brocaded.

A queer old place! You'd surely say
Some tea-board garden-maker
Had planned it in Dutch William's day
To please some florist Quaker,

So trim it was. The yew-trees still,
With pious care perverted,
Grew in the same grim shapes; and still
The lipless dolphin spurted;

Still in his wonted state abode
The broken-nosed Apollo;
And still the cypress-arbour showed
The same umbrageous hollow.

Only, -- as fresh young Beauty gleams
From coffee-coloured laces, --
So peeped from its old-fashioned dreams
The fresher modern traces;

For idle mallet, hoop, and ball
Upon the lawn were lying;
A magazine, a tumbled shawl,
Round which the swifts were flying;

And, tossed beside the Guelder rose,
A heap of rainbow knitting,
Where, blinking in her pleased repose,
A Persian cat was sitting.

'A place to love in, -- live, -- for aye,
If we too, like Tithonus,
Could find some god to stretch the grey,
Scant life the Fates have thrown us;

'But now by steam we run our race,
With buttoned heart and pocket;
Our Love's a gilded, surplus grace, --
Just like an empty locket!

'"The time is out of joint." Who will
May strive to make it better;
For me, this warm old window-sill,
And this old dusty letter.'





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