Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, COOL REFLECTIONS DURING A MIDSUMMER WALK, by ROBERT SOUTHEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

COOL REFLECTIONS DURING A MIDSUMMER WALK, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: O spare me -- spare me, phoebus! If, indeed
Last Line: Nymph of the stream, now take a grateful prayer.
Subject(s): Beauty; Happiness; Mythology - Classical; Nature - Religious Aspects; Paganism & Pagans; Prayer; Summer; Joy; Delight


O spare me—spare me, Phœbus! if, indeed,
Thou hast not let another Phaeton
Drive earthward thy fierce steeds and fiery car;
Mercy! I melt! I melt! no tree—no bush,
No shelter! not a breath of stirring air
East, west, or north, or south! dear god of day,
Put on thy night-cap!—crop thy locks of light,
And be in the fashion! turn thy back upon us,
And let thy beams flow upward! make it night
Instead of noon! one little miracle,
In pity, gentle Phœbus!
What a joy,
Oh, what a joy to be a seal and flounder,
On an ice-island! or to have a den
With the white bear, cavern'd in polar snow!
It were a comfort to shake hands with death—
He has a rare cold hand! to wrap one's self
In the gift shirt Deianeira sent,
Dipt in the blood of Nessus, just to keep
The sun off,—or toast cheese for Beelzebub,
That were a cool employment to this journey
Along a road whose white intensity
Would now make platina uncongelable,
Like quicksilver.
Were it midnight, I should walk
Self-lanthorn'd, saturate with sun-beams. Jove!
O gentle Jove! have mercy, and once more
Kick that obdurate Phœbus out of heaven.
Give Boreas the wind-cholic, till he roars
For cardimum, and drinks down peppermint,
Making what's left as precious as Tokay.
Send Mercury to salivate the sky
Till it dissolves in rain. O gentle Jove!
But some such little kindness to a wretch
Who feels his marrow spoiling his best coat—
Who swells with calorique as if a Prester
Had leavened every limb with poison-yeast—
Lend me thine eagle just to flap his wings,
And fan me, and I will build temples to thee
And turn true pagan.
Not a cloud nor breeze—
O you most heathen deities! if ever
My bones reach home (for, for the flesh upon them
That hath resolved itself into a dew),
I shall have learnt owl-wisdom. Most vile Phœbus,
Set me a Persian sun-idolater
Upon this turnpike road, and I'll convert him
With no inquisitorial argument
But thy own fires. Now woe be to me, wretch,
That I was in a heretic country born!
Else might some mass for the poor souls that bleach,
And burn away the calx of their offences
In that great purgatory crucible,
Help me. O Jupiter! my poor complexion!
I am made a copper-Indian of already.
And if no kindly cloud will parasol me,
My very cellular membrane will be changed—
I shall be negrofied.
A brook! a brook!
Oh what a sweet cool sound!
'Tis very nectar!
It runs like life through every strengthen'd limb—
Nymph of the stream, now take a grateful prayer.





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