Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, POMONA, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

POMONA, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, the golden afternoon!
Last Line: Smiling o'er the orchard wall.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Afternoon; Goddesses & Gods; Mythology; Nature; Orchards


OH, the golden afternoon! --
Like a ripened summer day
That had fallen oversoon
In the weedy orchard-way --
As an apple, ripe in June.

He had left his fishrod leant
O'er the footlog by the spring --
Clomb the hill-path's high ascent,
Whence a voice, down showering,
Lured him, wondering as he went.

Not the voice of bee nor bird,
Nay, nor voice of man nor child,
Nor the creek's shoal-alto heard
Blent with warblings sweet and wild
Of the midstream, music-stirred.

'Twas a goddess! As the air
Swirled to eddying silence, he
Glimpsed about him, half aware
Of some subtle sorcery
Woven round him everywhere.

Suavest slopes of pleasaunce, sown
With long lines of fruited trees
Weighed o'er grasses all unmown
But by scythings of the breeze
In prone swaths that flashed and shone

Like silk locks of Faunus sleeked
This, that way, and contrawise,
Through whose bredes ambrosial leaked
Oily amber sheens and dyes,
Starred with petals purple-freaked.

Here the bellflower swayed and swung,
Greenly belfried high amid
Thick leaves in whose covert sung
Hermit-thrush, or katydid,
Or the glowworm nightly clung.

Here the damson, peach and pear;
There the plum, in Tyrian tints,
Like great grapes in clusters rare;
And the metal-heavy quince
Like a plummet dangled there.

All ethereal, yet all
Most material, -- a theme
Of some fabled festival --
Save the fair face of his dream
Smiling o'er the orchard wall.





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