Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OAK AND OLIVE, by JAMES ELROY FLECKER Poet's Biography First Line: Though I was born a londoner Last Line: One of the englishmen! Subject(s): Greece; Travel; Greeks; Journeys; Trips | ||||||||
I Though I was born a Londoner, And bred in Gloucestershire, I walked in Hellas years ago With friends in white attire: And I remember how my soul Drank wine as pure as fire. And when I stand by Charing Cross I can forget to hear The crash of all those smoking wheels, When those cold flutes and clear Pipe with such fury down the street, My hands grow moist with fear. And there's a hall in Bloomsbury No more I dare to tread, For all the stone men shout at me And swear they are not dead; And once I touched a broken girl And knew that marble bled. II But when I walk in Athens town That swims in dust and sun Perverse, I think of London then Where massive work is done, And with what sweep at Westminster The rayless waters run. I ponder how from Attic seed There grew an English tree, How Byron like his heroes fell, Fighting a country free, And Swinburne took from Shelley's lips The kiss of Poetry. And while our poets chanted Pan Back to his pipes and power, Great Verrall, bending at his desk, And searching hour on hour Found out old gardens, where the wise May pluck a Spartan flower. III When I go down the Gloucester lanes My friends are deaf and blind: Fast as they turn their foolish eyes The Maenads leap behind, And when I hear the fire-winged feet, They only hear the wind. Have I not chased the fluting Pan Through Cranham's sober trees? Have I not sat on Painswick Hill With a nymph upon my knees, And she as rosy as the dawn, And naked as the breeze? IV But when I lie in Grecian fields, Smothered in asphodel, Or climb the blue and barren hills, Or sing in woods that smell With such hot spices of the South As mariners might sell -- Then my heart turns where no sun burns, To lands of glittering rain, To fields beneath low-clouded skies New-widowed of their grain, And Autumn leaves like blood and gold That strew a Gloucester lane. V Oh well I know sweet Hellas now, And well I knew it then, When I with starry lads walked out -- But ah, for home again! Was I not bred in Gloucestershire, One of the Englishmen! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...RICHARD, WHAT'S THAT NOISE? by RICHARD HOWARD LOOKING FOR THE GULF MOTEL by RICHARD BLANCO RIVERS INTO SEAS by LYNDA HULL DESTINATIONS by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN THE ONE WHO WAS DIFFERENT by RANDALL JARRELL THE CONFESSION OF ST. JIM-RALPH by DENIS JOHNSON SESTINA: TRAVEL NOTES by WELDON KEES TO H. B. (WITH A BOOK OF VERSE) by MAURICE BARING SANTORIN (A LEGEND OF THE AEGEAN) by JAMES ELROY FLECKER |
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