Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SYCAMINE, by DAVID MACBETH MOIR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SYCAMINE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The frail yellow leaves they are falling
Last Line: Ye know not where ye tread!
Alternate Author Name(s): Delta
Subject(s): Absence; Farewell; Separation; Isolation; Parting


I.

THE frail yellow leaves they are falling,
As the wild winds sweep the grove;
Plashy and dank is the sward beneath,
And the sky it is grey above.

II.

Foaming adown the dark rocks,
Dirge-like, the waterfall
Mourns, as if mourning for something gone,
For ever beyond its call.

III.

Sing, redbreast, from the russet spray—
Thy song with the season blends;
For the bees have left us with the blooms,
And the swallows were summer friends.

IV.

The hawthorn bare, with berries sere,
And the bramble by the stream,
Matted, with clay on its yellow trails,
Decay's wan emblems seem.

V.

On this slope bank how oft we lay
In shadow of the sycamine tree;
Pause, hoary Eld, and listen now—
'Twas but the roaring of the sea!

VI.

Oh, the shouts and the laughter of yore—
How the tones wind round the heart!
Oh, the faces blent with youth's blue skies—
And could ye so depart!

VII.

The crow screams back to the wood,
And the sea-mew to the sea,
And earth seems to the foot of man
No resting-place to be.

VIII.

Search ye the corners of the world,
And the isles beyond the main,
And the main itself, for those who went
To come not back again!

IX.
The rest are a remnant scatter'd
'Mid the living; and, for the dead,
Tread lightly o'er the churchyard mounds—
Ye know not where ye tread!





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