Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE RAVINE OF SAINT-GILLES, by CHARLES MARIE RENE LECONTE DE LISLE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE RAVINE OF SAINT-GILLES, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: The gorge is dark below the reeds' massed slimness
Last Line: And lights in him the eternal hope unquelled!
Subject(s): Hope; Nature; Water; Optimism


THE gorge is dark below the reeds' massed slimness
Wherethro' the sun at noonday may not pierce;
And hidden springs slow-thridding thro' the dimness
Are merged in silence of the solstice fierce.

Form the hard lava with mossed fissures pouring
Over the lichens there is water shed
And lost; from hidden tunnels of its boring
It springs again along its gravel bed.

There smooth and sullen a dark bluish well is,
While all along are heavy boulders bound
With rosy-belled lianes as on a trellis
Above the velvet plots of grassy ground.

The brink is fledged with cacti, and far flowing,
The bent-grass waves its filmy flowers near,
Where stalks the red-plumed cardinal whose going
Fills the soft-nested colibris with fear.

Kingfishers and green parakeets unstirring
From the high peaks gaze down on the still well;
And round the black hives in a sunbeam whirring,
A golden swarm of bees is audible.

Puffing a warm breath o'er the bushes mazy,
Stockstill amid the weed-entrammelled path,
Huge oxen sniff the air that wanders hazy
Clean form the running rills as from a bath;

And on their peaceful flanks, their shoulders bossy,
A myriad butterflies with gaudy wings,
A myriad grasshoppers deride the glossy
Slow swishing of the velvet tail that swings.

On the rock slope flame-filled as a live cinder
The supple lizard, basking in his sloth,
Simmers as though his emerald length were tinder
That thrilled to the sun's kisses nothing loth.

O'er mossy hollows where the quails are resting
In leafy shelter from the jungle heat,
With eyes half-closed the amorous cats go questing,
Smooth gliding by on velvet paws discreet.

Black on a boulder, a red loin-cloth wearing,
A native herdsman careless of his kine,
Hums a Saklavan melody, and, staring,
Dreams of the isle beyond the blue sea-line.

Thus on the yawning brink all things that tingle
With life thro' frond or fibre, plume or pelt,
Now shine, and dream, and chant in purpose single;
Yet, in a twinkling, into stillness melt.

Thro' the deep pit now silence walks with darkness,
Since, with a roaring sound the mountain steep
Hurled form the waves its sulphurous mass, in starkness
To harden in impenetrable sleep.

A patch of sky above the branches curving
Shows in a sparkle on the air up-buoyed
A flock to Ceylon or Rodrigué swerving
Like flakes of snow astray on the blue void.

Save for this peep-hole on the water flashing,
In the still night the ravine sinks to sleep;
And even a splintered boulder downward crashing
Sends up no echo of its dreadful leap.

He who hath probed thy ways, O Nature, proveth
Illusion binds thee, and thy face belies:
Whether in wrath or gladness thy strength moveth,
Or rage or rapture thy cold heart denies.

Happy the man whose heart is his own shelter,
Self-sealed, from grief or mirth or any hate,
Unstirred by rumours of the world's vast welter,
A gulf of silence still inviolate.

In vain life stirs about him; as one hallowed,
He dwells in his own heart as in a shrine;
In its unechoing darkness all is swallowed,
And nothing shines there, save one flame divine.

But this sole spark within its shadow hidden
Is the lost beam from spaces unbeheld;
It calls him hence to realms by life forbidden,
And lights in him the Eternal hope unquelled!





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