Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE GENTLE SAVAGE, by ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE GENTLE SAVAGE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Go down, my soul, unto the river
Last Line: Love's planet thrilling.
Alternate Author Name(s): Q; Quiller-couch, A. T.
Subject(s): Nature; Night; Bedtime


Go down, my Soul, unto the river;
The day is done, the mountain mute;
Thou hast a message to deliver—
Why loiterest yet irresolute?
See, on the farther bank,
The lamp-light winking
Across the city, cooling there her flank
Like a beast drinking!

Down by the mill, the ghostly miller
May see a twilit phantom steal
And loose an arrow duskier, shriller,
Than flies the bat about his wheel.
Arrow of secret call!
Call to her only
Who, at her window on the city wall,
Waiteth so lonely.

O Mother, in thy royal chamber
How barest thou such a son as I?
Thou, cased at heart with pearl and amber,
With starch and stiff embroidery:
I, the brown Ishmaelite—
I, whom the starry
Summits behold at loose upon the night
After my quarry?

Small Mother mine, amid thy roses
Thy heart sings all the day content:
The curtained wall that round thee closes
Reminds not of imprisonment.
I, on the mountain-tops
All the day roaming,
Recall thee never till a shadow drops
From the rook, homing.

That call renews our blood's confusion—
Thy babe leaps naked back to thee:
Thy soul remembers her seclusion,
And mine abhors her liberty.
Suppliant I nestle then
To thee the stronger,
And seek my strength of thee, mother of men,
Mere Queen no longer.

A moment—and our wiser senses
Restore to each the life apart.
Yet, as the violet condenses
All Venus in her dewy heart,
So all the night I hear
Thy lids distilling
A love that holds in every purple tear
Love's planet thrilling.





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