Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AZURE ISLANDS, by ARTHUR WILLIAM EDGAR O'SHAUGHNESSY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AZURE ISLANDS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Shipmen, sailing by night and day
Last Line: One of thy murmuring fountains.
Alternate Author Name(s): O'shaughnessy, Arthur W. E.
Subject(s): Islands; Sailing & Sailors; Sea; Ocean


SHIPMEN, sailing by night and day,
High on the azure sea,
Do you not meet upon your way,
Joyous and swift and free,
Sailing, sailing, ever sailing,
Nigh to the western skylands,
My soul, a bark beyond your hailing,
Bound for the azure islands?

When halcyon spells are on the wave,
And in the enchanted sight
A path the dappling sunbeams pave
Grows to intensest light;
And down in blue dominions, vainly
Now the sea-sprite's wonder,
The sunken cities glitter plainly,
And murmur in hushed thunder:

When every little billow breaks
Into a liquid bloom,
And sings for one changed soul that wakes,
Glad in so sweet a tomb;
And when in the rich horizon's dimness,
Over the ocean revel,
Some blue land with a palm's crowned slimness
Looms at the sea-waves' level:

I reach them as the wave wanes low,
Leaving its stranded ores,
And evening-floods of amber glow
And sleep around their shores;
Then, with a bird's will, a wind's power,
My soul dwells there ecstatic,
Knowing each palm-tree and each flower,
Gorgeous and enigmatic.

It plunges through some perfumed brake,
Or depth of odorous shade,
That walls and roofs a dim hushed lake,
Where endless dreams have stayed;
And there it takes the incarnation
Of some amphibious blossom,
And lies in long-drawn contemplation,
Buoyed on the water's bosom.

And mingling in the mysteries
Of interchanging hues,
And songs and sighs and silences,
That in one magic fuse,
My soul my solitude enriches
Through that profuse creation
With many a bird's impassioned speeches,
Or a flower's emanation.

O gorgeous Erumango! isle
Or blossom of the sea!
Often, some long enchanted while,
Have I been part of thee;
Part of some saffron hue that lingers
Above thy sapphire mountains;
One of thy spice-groves' full-voiced singers;
One of thy murmuring fountains.





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