Classic and Contemporary Poetry
RECOMPENSE, by EDWARD BLISS REED First Line: Where the green fir-tips meet the sapphire sky Last Line: For you can sing. Subject(s): Love; Sailing & Sailors; Sea Voyages | ||||||||
Where the green fir-tips meet the sapphire sky, A gull, cloud-white, Careless of earth, floats insolently by In the warm light. Still, imperturbable, it holds a course To lands unknown, And scornful of the south wind's gathering force It sails alone, Seeing unmoved the noon's exultant glow, The evening's grief, The wind-swept waves that crumble into snow Upon the reef. The ships becalmed or scudding for the shore In wind and rain, Alluring islesall these it passes o'er In calm disdain. Deep in the woods, the sea left far behind, I listen long, Searching in ambush, yet in vain, to find Who sings that song. I know those notes pure as the brooks that gush Down Alpine vale; Enchantress of the woods, the hermit-thrush, Our nightingale. Its world a forest bough; here in the shade It sings unseen The magic songs a yearning lover made To charm a queen. The ocean-wandering gull from all his quest Can nothing bring. You have the world within your throbbing breast, For you can sing. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN ABEYANCE by DENISE LEVERTOV LEAVING FOREVER by DENISE LEVERTOV SAILING HOME FROM RAPALLO by ROBERT LOWELL SHACKLETON by MADELINE DEFREES QE2. TRANSATLANTIC CROSSING. THIRD DAY. by RITA DOVE MANHATTAN, 1609 by EDWIN MARKHAM CROSSING THE ATLANTIC by ANNE SEXTON THE INDIA WHARF by SARA TEASDALE |
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