Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AVE MARIA, by JOHN COWPER POWYS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AVE MARIA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hollow spaces, large and deep
Last Line: That would be the heart of the mother of god!
Subject(s): Beds; Earth; Future Life; God; Mary And Martha (bible); Moon; Night; Sleep; Women In The Bible; World; Retribution; Eternity; After Life; Bedtime


Hollow spaces, large and deep,
Flow around your quiet sleep.
One would think your dreaming head
Had eternity for its bed!
Oh, how green, for all the night,
Is the floating liquid air,
Full of whispers, full of light,
Vague earth murmurs everywhere!

Listen! Did you hear that sound
In your eyelid-drooping sleep,
Falling thro' the listening night,
Falling, falling? And the earth
Melts in vaporous mist before it,
Melts as if from very birth
It had watched and waited for it!
Listen!

'Tis a petal from the moon
From that cold and chaste moon-flower,
Flung in languid lotus hour,
Like a thought after a tune;
Like a tune after a thought,
Sweet with ecstasy unsought!
And all other lovely things.

Such as shadow-veined moth-wings,
Such as shells from drifting seas,
Such as wild anemones,
Float with it thro' hollow space,
Dark against your white, white face,
Float and flutter and waver now,
Pale against your shadowy brow!
Listen!

Ah! You are listening deep and deep,
And you stir at last in your quiet sleep,
Fall the petals of the moon
To their soft eternal tune,
Thro' the green and hollow night,
All transparent tender things
From their cold creative springs
Fall, fall down into the night,
With a tremulous shy delight.
Listen!
Ave Maria!
The heart must be pierced with a sharp sword,
That would be the heart of the mother of God!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net