Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NOW IS WINTER GONE, by JOHN FREEMAN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NOW IS WINTER GONE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Long had I known you yet in truth I knew / you not
Last Line: Flushes and flowers as gilded fields in april shine.
Subject(s): Farewell; Love - Loss Of; Nature; Nostalgia; Relationships; Winter; Parting


LONG had I known you yet in truth I knew you not.
All winter through our branches rocked together and brushed
Each upon other; the same wind slid or wrangled through,
The same owl hooting flew
From bough to bough; on the same night's breast ours was hushed.

... All winter through, those many years of ignorant growth,
Until you went and empty ocean gaped between.
When you were gone I knew you, knew I was alone
In a world of frozen stone,
And all the buds were frozen, white and sparkling the green.

Then I knew you, then, your face lifting on the dark,
Upon the ocean rode like a ship's lamps your eyes;
But most your voice—Why did your voice upon me sweep,
Awake, awake from sleep,
Awake, poor sullen senses, thou idle spirit arise?

How could it be, while yet you were a world away,
That your voice sounded in any dark wind from the West,
In any hedge-bird's longed-for, returning note,
In the narrow river's reedy throat—
Singing, Shake off thy heaviness, no more slothful rest.

Not till then I knew, not till then I loved.
A stranger did you go, answering chill farewells.
Like Spring familiar, like dawn desired returning—
Each then in each discerning
Lineaments drawn first in dreams and sensuous spells.

For now is Winter gone—that madness of all the lonely—
New leaved the boughs wave song and shadow, silence and light,
Every bud quickens; the pear's fountain of silver spray
Falls in bright disarray
And spreads, on the fond green, her foam's fading white.

So now:—you who have never gone return your shape
Into its spirit that lay cheek by cheek with mine;
Nothing of you is dead in the mind's long-winter'd meadow.
Memory, at your shadow,
Flushes and flowers as gilded fields in April shine.





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