Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BRIDGE OF FIRE, by JAMES ELROY FLECKER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BRIDGE OF FIRE, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: High on the bridge of heaven whose eastern bars
Last Line: Whiten in habitations monumental cold.
Subject(s): Bridges


I

High on the bridge of Heaven whose Eastern bars
Exclude the interchange of Night and Day,
Robed with faint seas and crowned with quiet stars
All great Gods dwell to whom men prayed or pray.
No winter chills, no fear or fever mars
Their grand and timeless hours of pomp and play;
Some drive about the Rim wind-golden cars
Or, shouting, laugh Eternity away.
The daughters of their pride,
Moon-pale, blue-water-eyed,
Their flame-white bodies pearled with failing spray,
Send all their dark hair streaming
Down where the worlds lie gleaming,
And draw their mighty lovers close and say:
"Come over by the Stream: one hears
The speech of Nations broken in the chant of Spheres."

II

Hear now the song of those bright Shapes that shine
Huge as Leviathans, tasting the fare
Delicate-sweet, while scented dews divine
Thrill from the ground and clasp the rosy air,
"Sing on, sing out, and reach a hand for wine,
For the brown small Earth is softly afloat down there,
And the suns burn low, and the sky is sapphirine,
And the little winds of space are in our hair --
The little winds of space
Blow in the love-god's face,
The only god who lacks not praise and prayer;
He shall preserve his powers
Though Ruin shake square towers
And echoing Temples fall without repair,
And still go forth as strong as ten,
A red immortal riding in the hearts of men!"

III

The Gods whose faces are the morning light
Of they who love the leafy rood of song,
The Gods of Greece, dividing the broad night,
Have gathered on the Bridge, of all that throng
The fairest, whether he whose feet for flight
Had plumy wings, or she to whom belong
Shadows, Persephone, or that swan-white
Rose-breasted island lady, gentle and strong,
Or younger gods than these
That peep among the trees
And dance when Dionysus beats his gong,
Or the old disastrous gods
That nod with snaky nods
Brandishing high the sharp and triple thong,
Or whom the dull profound of Hell
Spits forth, the reeling Typhon that in dark must dwell.

IV

Shadows there are that seem to look for home
Each spreading like a gloom across the plain,
Voiced like a great bell swinging in a dome,
Appealing mightily for realms to reign.
They were the slow and shapeless gods of Rome,
Laborious gods, who founded power on pain,
These watched the peasant turn his sullen loam,
These drave him out to fight, nor drave in vain:
Saturnus white and old
Who lost the age of gold,
Mars who was proud to stand on the deep-piled slain,
Pomona from whose womb
Slow fruits in season come,
And, tower-crowned mother of the yellow grain,
Demeter, and the avenging dead,
The silent Lemures, in fear with honey fed.

V

Belus and Ra and that most jealous Lord
Who rolled the hosts of Pharaoh in the sea,
Trolls of the North, in every hand a sword,
Gnomes and dwarfs and the shuddering company,
Gods who take vengeance, gods who grant reward,
Gods who exact a murdered devotee,
Brahma the kind, and Siva the abhorred
And they who tend Ygdrasil, the big tree,
And Isis, the young moon,
And she of the piping tune,
Her Phrygian sister, Cruel Cybele,
Orpheus the lone harp-player
And Mithras the man-slayer,
And Allah rumbling on to victory,
And some, the oldest of them all,
Square heads that leer and lust, and lizard shapes that crawl.

VI

Between the pedestals of Night and Morning,
Between red death and radiant desire
With not one sound of triumph or of warning
Stands the great sentry on the Bridge of Fire.
O transient soul, thy thought with dreams adorning,
Cast down the laurel, and unstring the lyre:
The wheels of Time are turning, turning, turning,
The slow stream channels deep and doth not tire.
Gods on their Bridge above
Whispering lies and love
Shall mock your passage down the sunless river
Which, rolling all its streams,
Shall take you, king of dreams,
-- Unthroned and unapproachable for ever --
To where the kings who dreamed of old
Whiten in habitations monumental cold.





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