Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FOUR SONGS OF FOUR SEASONS: 3. SUMMER IN AUVERGNE, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FOUR SONGS OF FOUR SEASONS: 3. SUMMER IN AUVERGNE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The sundawn fills the land
Last Line: That scars their land.
Subject(s): Dawn; Nature; Summer; Sun; Sunrise


THE sundawn fills the land
Full as a feaster's hand
Fills full with bloom of bland
Bright wine his cup;
Flows full to flood that fills
From the arch of air it thrills
Those rust-red iron hills
With morning up;

Dawn, as a panther's springs,
With fierce and fire-fledged wings
Leaps on the land that rings
From her bright feet
Thro' all its lava-black
Cones that cast answer back
And cliffs of footless track
Where thunders meet.

The light speaks wide and loud
From deeps blown clean of cloud
As tho' days' heart were proud
And heaven's were glad;
The towers brown-striped and grey
Take fire from heaven of day
As tho' the prayers they pray
Their answers had.

Higher in these high first hours
Wax all the keen church towers,
And higher all hearts of ours
Than the old hills' crown,
Higher than the pillared height
Of that strange cliff-side bright
With basalt towers whose might
Strong time bows down.

'Shut out the flower time
Half sun's half shower time,
Make way for our time,'
Wild winds have cried.
What is love worth? nay,
Tell me, dear.

And the old fierce ruin there
Of the old wild princes' lair
Whose blood in mine hath share
Gapes gaunt and great
Toward heaven that long ago
Watched all the wan land's woe
Whereon the wind would blow
Of their bleak hate.

Dead are those deeds; but yet
Their memory seems to fret
Lands that might else forget
That old world's brand;
Dead all their sins and days;
Yet in this red climes rays
Some fiery memory stays
That scars their land.





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