Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN MY WINDOW-SEAT, by GRACE DENIO LITCHFIELD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN MY WINDOW-SEAT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I am sitting in my window-seat
Last Line: And the world is very still.
Subject(s): Dreams; Night; Rest; Shadows; Silence; Sleep; Nightmares; Bedtime


I AM sitting in my window-seat,
And all the world is still;
Only the shadows 'neath my feet
Are creeping up the hill,
And the shadows above are stooping down
As if to lay o'er the sleeping town
The folded mantle, soft and brown,
They have dropped to my window-sill.

More dim, more dense the twilight grows;
A silence falls on earth
As if it waited for the throes
Of some immortal birth.
The stars throb out with fitful light,
Like a golden pulse in the veins of night,
And across the heavens, thin and white,
Stretches the silver girth.

Then out upon the quivering dark—
The palpitating sky—
Athwart the gloom that seems to hark
A decree that bids it die,
Dropped from a hand beyond our sight
There falls the glittering long moonlight,
Like a sword down-flashing through the night
That it severs in passing by.

And as if wakened at the touch
To tremulous delight,
Yet tinged with earthliness overmuch,
Come the voices of the night,
Now sad as notes of mortals are,
Now sweet, mysterious, and far
As from seraphs poised on a distant star,
But winged for nearer flight.

My soul, borne upward with the sweep
Of the solemn exultant lay,
Borne on by the music grave and deep
Is lost in the pathless grey.
Around me are living thoughts astir.
Above Truths interlace and blur.
Beneath lie shadows of things that were,
And dreams dreamed through by day.

And as I watch, lo, over all,
O'er sea, and hill, and wood,
A wondrous presence seems to fall
Out of the clouds that brood—
Something immeasurably grand,
As if the shadow of God's hand
An instant lay across the land,
And near us angels stood.

And a holy murmur fills the air,
A strange delicious thrill,
As if men's hearts awoke in prayer
To listen to God's will,
And, listening, heard a summons sweet
Beyond compare, and ceased to beat.—
And I sit alone in my window-seat,
And the world is very still.





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