Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TENERIFFE, by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS Poet's Biography First Line: Atlantid islands, phantom-fair Last Line: Illumined heaven, eternal sea. Alternate Author Name(s): Myers, Frederic Subject(s): Teneriffe, Canary Islands | ||||||||
I ATLANTID islands, phantom-fair, Throned on the solitary seas, Immersed in amethystine air, Haunt of Hesperides! Farewell! I leave Madeira thus Drowned in a sunset glorious, The Holy Harbour fading far Beneath a blaze of cinnabar. II What sights had burning eve to show From Tacoronte's orange-bowers, From palmy headlands of Ycod, From Orotava's flowers! When Palma or Canary lay Cloud-cinctured in the crimson day, Sea, and sea-wrack, and rising higher Those purple peaks 'twixt cloud and fire. III But oh the cone aloft and clear Where Atlas in the heavens withdrawn To hemisphere and hemisphere Disparts the dark and dawn! O vaporous waves that roll and press! Fire-opalescent wilderness! O pathway by the sunbeams ploughed Betwixt those pouring walls of cloud! IV We watched adown that glade of fire Celestial Iris floating free; We saw the cloudlets keep in choir Their dances on the sea; The scarlet, huge, and quivering sun Feared his due hour was overrun, On us the last he blazed, and hurled His glory on Columbus' world. V Then ere our eyes the change could tell, Or feet bewildered turn again, From Teneriffe the darkness fell Head-foremost on the main: A hundred leagues was seaward thrown The gloom of Teyde's towering cone, Full half the height of heaven's blue That monstrous shadow overflew. VI Then all is twilight; pile on pile The scattered flocks of cloudland close, An alabaster wall, erewhile Much redder than the rose! Falls like a sleep on souls forspent Majestic Night's abandonment; Wakes like a waking life afar Hung o'er the sea one eastern star. VII O Nature's glory, Nature's youth, Perfected sempiternal whole! And is the World's in very truth An impercipient Soul? Or doth that Spirit, past our ken, Live a profounder life than men, Awaits our passing days, and thus In secret places calls to us? VIII O fear not thou, whate'er befall Thy transient individual breath; Behold, thou knowest not at all What kind of thing is Death: And here indeed might Death be fair, If Death be dying into air, If souls evanished mix with thee, Illumined Heaven, eternal Sea. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON A GRAVE AT GRINDELWALD by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS SAINT PAUL: 1 by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS SIMMENTHAL by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS A CHILD OF THE AGE by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS A COSMIC HISTORY by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS A COSMIC OUTLOOK by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS A CRY FROM THE STALLS by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS A LAST APPEAL by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS A LETTER FROM NEWPORT by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS A PRAYER by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS |
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