Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TALK IN A GONDOLA, by HERMANN HESSE Poet's Biography First Line: What I dream, you ask? Last Line: Glows the heavens' vault of sunlit blue. Subject(s): Gondolas & Gondoliers | ||||||||
What I dream, you ask? That yesterday We had died, we two. In fair array-- Clad in white, our hair with flowers wound-- In our gondola we're seaward bound. Bells from yonder campanile peal, But the water gurgles round the keel, Drowns the distant toll that's gently failing. Onward, onward to the sea we're sailing, Where the ships with masts that tower high, Sombre shadows, rest against the sky, Where on fishing-boats there gleam the moist, Deep-stained red and yellow sails they hoist, Where the roaring mighty waves are swelling, Where the sailors lurid tales are telling. Through a gate of bluest water, deeply Downward now our boat is gliding steeply. In the depths we find a widening range Filled with many trees of coral strange, Where in lustrous shells that hidden gleam Pale gigantic pearls alluring beam. Silvery fishes pass us, glistening, shy, Leaving tinted trails as they flit by, In whose furrows other fish instead Gleam with slender tails of golden red. At the bottom, fathoms deeps, we dream: As if bells were calling, it will seem, Now and then, as if from some far land Winds sang songs we cannot understand, Songs of narrow streets we long ago Left behind, of things we used to know-- Songs so far, far off about the ways That we trod in long forgotten days. And with wonder we'll remember slowly Now a street, now some cathedral holy, Or the shouting of a gondolier-- Many names that once we used to hear. Smiling then, as children smile in sleep, We our silent lips still moving keep, And the word will, ere it spoken seems, Fall into oblivion, death in dreams. Over us the mighty vessels float, Sails are bright on many a sombre boat, Snow-white birds in gleaming sunshine fly, Glist'ning nets upon the water lie; Spanning all, with arches high and true Glows the heavens' vault of sunlit blue. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN A GONDOLA by ROBERT BROWNING IN A GONDOLA by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER A DREAM IN A GONDOLA by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES THE VENETIAN SERENADE by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES GONDOLIED by GEORGE MURRAY (1830-1910) EPISTLE IN FORM OF A BALLAD TO HIS FRIENDS by FRANCOIS VILLON |
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