Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, INTIMATIONS, by LUCIA CLARK MARKHAM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

INTIMATIONS, by                    
First Line: Tonight I hear a strange exultant hail
Last Line: Of my discarded personalities.


I

Tonight I hear a strange exultant hail
Out of the sentient darkness clanging far
From the white glitter of the Polar Star
To this dark land clad in its wintry mail --
The wild geese flying on the southland trail,
Bold riders on the pathless seas of night!
My pulses thrill with urgency of flight
To loose my anchor and unfurl my sail.

What magic in that call for you and me?
What alien lure our firelit quiet stirs
And wakes the zest of old adventuring?
Across what stormy highlands did we flee,
Intrepid, sure, careening wing to wing,
In that far past when we were voyagers?

II

In the dawn's dawn I hear the cock's shrill cry
Piercing the silence like a blade of steel --
What is this subtle sharp regret I feel,
This strange protesting hurt? This poignancy
Of long-suppresed inchoate memory?
Beyond the dim horizon of the earth
Before the morning-star had blazed to birth,
Somewhere I heard my frantic heart reply.

Then comes the tempo of familiar things,
Dewdrops caressing vagrant childish feet,
The scent of elder-blossoms and the sweet
Delirium of young love's reveries;
That clarion call evokes the garnerings
Of my discarded personalities.





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