Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DOWN-FLOWERS; TO MAURICE MAETERLINCK, by SADAKICHI HARTMANN



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DOWN-FLOWERS; TO MAURICE MAETERLINCK, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Weird phantoms rise in the dawn-wind's blow
Last Line: To strew these dawn-flowers at their feet.
Subject(s): Dawn; Dramatists; Flowers; Life; Maeterlinck, Maurice (1862-1949); Plays & Playwrights ; Poetry & Poets; Sunrise; Dramatists


Weird phantoms rise in the dawn-wind's blow,
In the land of shadows the dawn-flowers grow;
The night-worn moon yields her weary glow
To the morn-rays that over the dream-waste flow.

Oh, to know what the dawn-wind murmurs
In chapels of pines to the ashen moons;
What the forest-well whispers to dale and dell
With her singular, reticent runes;
To know the plaint of each falling leaf
As it whirls across the autumnal plain;
To know the dreams of the desolate shore
As sails, like ghosts, pass o'er the dawnlit main!
To know, oh, to know
Why all life's strains have the same refrain
As of rain,
Beating sadly against the window pain.

We do not know and we can not know,
And all that is left for us here below
(Since "songs and singers are out of date"
And the muses have met with a similar fate)
Is to flee to the land of shadows and dreams,
Where the dawn-flowers grown
And the dawn-winds blow,
As morn-rays over life's dream-waste flow
To drown the moon in their ambient glow.

Oh, gray dawn-poet of Flanders,
Though in this life we ne'er may meet,
I'll linger where thy dream-maids wander
To strew these dawn-flowers at their feet.





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