Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HELLENICA: 1, by EDWARD JOSEPH HARRINGTON O'BRIEN



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HELLENICA: 1, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Twilight hath veiled his eyes
Last Line: Where I met philemon dreaming.
Subject(s): Spring


I

Twilight hath veiled his eyes
In the blue silence,
Sophron,
Who dreams of the morning
And white tides.

II

Here, in the cloudy night,
Murmurs the wind of ocean,
Bearing tidings of ships
To a sailor home from the sea.

III

Bird-haunted silences
Are troubled with wings of memory,
But the swallow returns not
Unto the roof of Charis.

IV

Light shrouds his dream
In a silver urn,
While the dust that he forsook,
Bears once more
The flesh that one was longing.

V

High on the purple mountain
An eagle soars,
But below in the valley
Only the wind from the stars
Remembers the flame
Shrined immortal within this rustling hollow.

VI

Under the columned pine
A poet sleeps,
With the swinging arch of stars
Making music above him.

VII

Spring and the coming of swallows
Opened her bridal day,
But darker wings shadowed the door,
And her spouse now mourns in vain
By another bed,
Where reeds sway over her pillow.

VIII

Light fades from the sky,
And the blue Thessalian hills
Grieve for the glory departed
Of one who sailed at dawn for the morning star.

IX

Here, on the rain-washed hillside,
Where the light dies over the grasses,
Myrrha bears on her breast
The little child
Who led her home to the shadows.

X

Wind, sweep gently
Over the bent narcissi
Bowed with the sighs
Of a shepherd who flutes here lonely.

XI

When spring comes over the mountain
From southern valleys,
Mela stirs on her couch of woven violets,
For a low wind pulls at her heart
That grasses cover.

XII

Cicada, pulsing alone in the summer noontide,
Sing of wild-haunted glades
Of mossy coolness.
So shall my heart remember
The tangled light
Where I met Philemon dreaming.





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