Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BLACK PANTHER, by CHARLES MARIE RENE LECONTE DE LISLE



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BLACK PANTHER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Along the clouds there spreads a rosy lustre
Last Line: Beneath the forest aisle.
Subject(s): Hunting; Night; Panthers; Hunters; Bedtime


ALONG the clouds there spreads a rosy lustre;
The horizon's laced with flame; while languidly
Night from her neck unlinks the pearly cluster
That falls into the sea.

The sky dons flaming vesture of dawn's weaving,
And folds of shifting splendour swathe the blue;
The trailing raiment reddens the sea's heaving
With drops of fiery dew.

On bamboo-bushes that the light wind threshes,
On palms and purple-fruited fronds asway,
Dew scatters silver sparks, and dawn refreshes
The myriad sounds of day.

From moss and flow'r, from hill and woodland spreading,
Lulled by the tepid wind there now upwells
A wave of air, scent-saturate, down shedding
Its fever of sweet smells.

By tangled paths beneath the wood's green awning,
Where the thick grasses in the sunlight smoke,
Where torrents roar down deep-hewn gullies yawning
Under the reeds they soak;

Behold the panther comes with black limbs shining
Back from her midnight hunting to her whelps
Where amid bones they huddle close, repining
With hunger-goaded yelps.

Restless, with wary eyes like arrows probing,
She steers among the boughs her furtive way,
And on the blackness of her velvet robing
Gleam blood-stains of her prey.

She drags its mangled remnant, torn asunder
From a slain stag, whereon to-night she'll feed,
And the frayed haunches of her dreadful plunder
Drip blood on moss and weed.

Round her the butterflies and wild bees muster,
Skimming her supple sinews as they fleet;
A myriad bushes where sweet blossoms cluster
Throw perfume at her feet.

The python from a scarlet cactus peering
Unwinds his coil, and with a curious eye
Beholds, above the bush his flat head rearing,
Her stealthy form go by.

She glides beneath tall fern-trees, sinking noiseless
Behind mossed boles; the blazing air the while
Struck dumb in the vast light above, grows voiceless
Beneath the forest aisle.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...



Home: PoetryExplorer.net