Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE DOWNS, by JOHN COWPER POWYS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE DOWNS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Squeeze out the cowslip-wine and let me drink
Last Line: My landscape; -- she is with me; -- I can die.
Subject(s): Death; Dreams; Drinks & Drinking; Orion (mythology); Silence; Dead, The; Nightmares; Wine


Squeeze out the cowslip-wine and let me drink
Deep of the hush that lieth on the hills!
Let all the murmurs of the valley sink
Far down, far distant, like a cup that spills
Its sweetness on a drowsy-mossed lawn
Smelling of twilight as the rooks sail by
And the last twitterings of the sparrows cease --
With nought above me but Orion's horn,
Calling thro' space to Perseus, let me lie.
Silence; -- a plover's scream, -- the world's release.

Nothing about me but the close-cropp'd grass
And mushroom-rings and dew-ponds high and lonely.
In a half-dream I let my fancies pass
Like ripples on a lake, and dally only
With those that seem in league with careless sleep;
Such as the thought of caverns floored with sand
Thro' which the gurgling tide ebbs, lifting slow
And dropping the cold weed, and bearing deep
Its drift of shells and shingle far from land,
Far out to sea, where the great steamers go --

Such as the falling, in a moonlit night,
Of leafy shadows on an empty way
Fringed with tall-waving grass and parsley white
Which not a single foot has stirred that day;
Such as the stillness of a roofless shed
Rising amid the reeds of a vast plain
Where thro' the willow-tops the night-winds hum
And the old sorrow in a lover's head
Listens all night long to the sobbing rain,
Listens and weeps, and dreams that she has come.

Squeeze out the cowslip-wine, O fairy hands!
Long, long ago I tasted such a cup,
And weary now of foreign loves and lands
I kiss the arms that once more lift it up,
The shadowy arms full of mysterious sleep.
The wheel of my life's fever comes at last
Full circle -- I am tired -- let me rest.
Let this wine lull the pulses that must keep
Beating reiterations of the past --
Too many lives I've lived -- The end is best.

The mushroom-rings grow dark -- The dew-ponds fade.
Thro' the hushed night Orion blows his horn.
The brooding Downs a solemn couch have made,
Where I can sleep away all earthly scorn,
And all the ache of life, and all the throb
Of all its engines. Somewhere from the hills
Comes like a human voice the peewit's cry;
Silence -- the world's release; a whimpering sob
From distant sheep-folds; -- and a lost face fills
My landscape; -- she is with me; -- I can die.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


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