Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE ARTIC VISITATION, by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Some air-born genius, with malignant mouth Last Line: Bound for a land where sunlight cannot fade? Subject(s): Cold | ||||||||
SOME air-born genius, with malignant mouth, Breathed on the cold clouds of an Arctic zone -- Which o'er long wastes of shore and ocean blown Swept threatening, vast, toward the amazed South: Over the land's fair form at first there stole A vanward host of vapors, wild and white; Then loomed the main cloud cohorts, massed in might, Till earth lay corpse-like, reft of life and soul; Death-wan she lay, 'neath heavens as cold and pale; All nature drooped toward darkness and despair; The dreary woodlands, and the ominous air Were strangely haunted by a voice of wail. The woeful sky slow passionless tears did weep, Each shivering rain-drop frozen ere it fell; The woodman's axe rang like a muffled knell; Faintly the echoes answered, fraught with sleep. The dawn seemed eve; noon, dawn eclipsed of grace; The evening, night; and tender night became A formless void, through which no starry flame Touched the veiled splendor of her sorrowful face; Like mourning nuns, sad-robed, funereal, bowed, Day followed day; the birds their quavering notes Piped here and there from feeble, querulous throats. Fierce cold beneath -- above, one riftless cloud Wrapped the mute world -- for now all winds had died -- And, locked in ice, the fettered forests gave No sign of life; as silent as the grave Gloomed the dim, desolate landscape far and wide. Gazing on these, from out the mist one day I saw, a shadow on the shadowy sky, What seemed a phantom bird, that faltering nigh, Perched by the roof-tree on a withered spray; With drooping breast he stood, and drooping head; This fateful time had wrought the minstrel wrong; Even as I gazed, our southland lord of song Dropped through the blasted branches, breathless, dead! Yet chillier grew the gray, world-haunting shade, Through which, methought, quick, tremulous wings were heard; Was it the ghost of that heartbroken bird Bound for a land where sunlight cannot fade? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ANOTHER LOSS TO STOP FOR by JILL BIALOSKY IN THE EVENINGS by LUCILLE CLIFTON AT THE DEATH OF A MONGOLIAN PEASANT by NORMAN DUBIE MEISTER ECKHART by NORMAN DUBIE THOMAS MERTON AND THE WINTER MARSH by NORMAN DUBIE COMING SOON by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE A STORM IN THE DISTANCE (AMONG THE GEORGIAN HILLS) by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE |
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