Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HEMISPHERES, by JOHN FREEMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HEMISPHERES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When in the body you draw near
Last Line: Only your mortality.
Subject(s): Bodies; Relationships; Spiritual Life


WHEN in the body you draw near
Your spirit shrinks far, far away,
As hemisphere and hemisphere
Alternate narrow night and day.

Your spirit west, your body east—
Shines never light from both at once?
Darkness is in your spirit increased
While 'neath your brow shine mirrored suns.

Or if your body as the moon
Is far and vacuous and cold,
Your spirit falls like April noon
Sprinkling the grass with sudden gold.

But I, between your sun and moon,
And hemisphere and hemisphere,
Halt misdoubting which the boon
I chiefly need, and which most dear—

Your present spirit, absent shape,
Your kissing body, distant soul.
I clasp you, and lo, you escape,
Seizing a part I lose the whole.

Remove far off—even so to bring
Invisible your self's Self back;
Let me not to the substance cling
And evermore the shadow lack.

Else in the habitude of touch
And voice and look I lose your high
Spiritual mystery, and clutch
Only your mortality.





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