Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MUSIC ON WATER, by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MUSIC ON WATER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Where does remembrance weep when we forget?
Last Line: Watches the time, and thinks it wondrous slow.
Subject(s): Death; Mars (god); Music & Musicians; Water; Dead, The


WHERE does Remembrance weep when we forget?
From whither brings she back an old delight?
Why do we weep that once we laughed? and yet
Why are we sad that once our hearts were light?
I sometimes think the days that we made bright
Are damned within us, and we hear them yell,
Deep in the solitude of that wide hell,
Because we welcome in some new regret.

I will remember with sad heart next year
This music and this water, but to-day
Let me be part of all this joy. My ear
Caught far-off music which I bid away,
The light of one fair face that fain would stay
Upon the heart's broad canvas, as the Face
On Mary's towel, lighting up the place.
Too sad for joy, too happy for a tear.

Methinks I see the music like a light
Low on the bobbing water, and the fields
Yellow and brown alternate on the height,
Hanging in silence there like battered shields,
Lean forward heavy with their coloured yields
As if they paid it homage; and the strains,
Prisoners of Echo, up the sunburnt plains
Fade on the cross-cut to a future night.

In the red West the twisted moon is low,
And on the bubbles there are half-lit stars:
Music and twilight: and the deep blue flow
Of water: and the watching fire of Mars:
The deep fish slipping thro' the moonlit bars
Make Death a thing of sweet dreams, life a mock.
And the soul patient by the heart's loud clock
Watches the time, and thinks it wondrous slow.





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