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


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

JASMINE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Let me be quiet now and nothing say
Last Line: Let be, let be.
Subject(s): Flowers; Jasmine; Nature


LET me be quiet now and nothing say
With noisy lips.
Voices are loud for thought that dies away,
Away,
As dew beneath the fierce and urgent sun.
Let silence
Be heard and now the noise of speech be done.
Or if
Some way must be for eager thought to run
That cannot fly
On shadow wings, let evening odours bear
The burthen of
Thought's secrecy, floating on stirless air.
Here
Is jasmine—and O jasmine to my heart
That reachest,
When thy soft waves wash round me and depart
Then carry
My mute desire into the listening night;
And unto me
Bring other air of intimate delight
And pain.
But, jasmine, if upon a pure dark hour,
Moonless and dark,
The smell again should flow from thy white flower
Nursed in dusk green;
If once again that unimagined smell
Break up
The fountains of my spirit—nay, how tell,
How tell.
I have known the sweetness of thy utmost sweet,
The pain
Of sweet past sweetness, and of joy so fleet
Yet too, too slow. ...
That hour is loveliness and a memory.
Let be.
There is no word for this felicity,
Let be, let be.





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