Classic and Contemporary Poetry
CRETAN IDYL, by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY Poet's Biography First Line: Ah, see the grasshoppers, flame-colored, beautiful Last Line: Flashing their flame-colored wings. Subject(s): Crete | ||||||||
Ah, see the grasshoppers, flame-colored, beautiful, Singing and flying in the harsh sunlight, On the heights of Phaestos, Phaestos trembling with sun. Hear the click of their wings, flame-colored, And watch them swarming and singing Where once the high-built palace towered and sang, Where now the rubble whitens in glare. The dark blue sea is yonder With mints and thyme and grasses, And yonder down in the valley The plane trees pool their shadow, And the olives sprinkle a shifting lace, And the cypresses too like silence Lay a finger of shade. Surely if I had wings, I should go slithering down Where the rose-laurels wade in the pasture, Their perfume hazy about them, Heavy with bloom and drowsy, Too beautiful, ah, to think of. Why are they crowding here, Shutting, unshutting their wings, Here on the shadowless cliff-top Where only the thistle is thriving, Blue through all of its body, Hot blue like a twist of the sky? The thistles, the parched pale grasses, These and the dead acanthus, These are all that remain Of the garlands and wreaths of Phaestos, On the shattered tomb of Phaestos, Why are they here with their singing And not on the steep of Ida Where chalk-marks of snow attest The infinite ravage of summer? Ah, these are the people of Minos, The beautiful flame-colored Cretans of old, Who sang through the palace and danced in the daedal days, In the delicate days before Troy. And now they cry through the palace, Drunk with the harsh desolation, Mad with the terrible sunlight, Calling for Minos the king, Calling for sweet Ariadne, In the empty desolate sunlight, Flashing their flame-colored wings. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE TOMB OF LIEUTENANT JOHN LEARMONTH, A. I. F. by JOHN STREETER MANIFOLD CRETONNE TROPICS by GRACE HAZARD CONKLING PHAEDRA REMEMBERS CRETE by HILDA DOOLITTLE THE FREEING OF CRETE by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907) THE GOLDSMITH by SIEGFRIED SASSOON WITHDRAWAL FROM CRETE by AUDREY ALEXANDRA BROWN TOMB OF LIEUTENANT JOHN LEARMONTH, A. I. F. by JOHN STREETER MANIFOLD CYPRUS / THE STRANGLED by CHARLES OLSON OVERTONES by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY |
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