Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SATURNIAN, by JOHN COWPER POWYS



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SATURNIAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ah, I must follow it high and low
Last Line: And from my birth have I been such.
Subject(s): Beauty; Evening; Flowers; God; Night; Sunset; Twilight; Bedtime


Ah, I must follow it high and low,
Tho' it leave me cold to your human touch!
Some starry sorcery made me so;
And from my birth have I been such.

What is it I follow so secret-lone?
Over the hills and along the sea?
Beauty with every seed is sown,
For you, for them, for me?

Not so, by the gods! Do I not hear
In the night a tender-muffled crying,
Rising, falling, sinking, dying?
Oh, I must follow it thro' the world!

Not so, by the gods! When the dawn-wind stirs,
Rustling over the river-reeds,
Trembling over the wet pastures,
Shall I not follow it, whither it leads?

Oh, wild and sad, oh, wild and sweet,
Is the lonely horn that I always hear,
Blown from the place where all streams meet,
Where all horizons disappear!

The long sea-tides bring home to port,
Their ships by many a moonlit wharf,
But an ebbing twilight carries my thought
Beyond every coast it would anchor off.

Like a reef-bell rocking and ringing low,
Under a grey and rain-swept sky,
The beauty I follow doth come and go,
And if I found it, I should die.

The wild-bird of my longing sings
Always in the next hollow,
And always, always it spreads its wings,
When I cross the hill to follow.

Ah! Once when the burning noon was poured
On moss and stone and dreaming sod,
I saw the great blue flower that God
Made for the Son of God.

And do you think I can go content,
With the beauty we meet with everywhere,
When I have breathed that flower's scent
And seen it melt into the air?

Oh, I must follow it high and low,
Though it leave me cold to your human touch,
Some starry sorcery made me so;
And from my birth have I been such.





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