Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NOTUS IGNOTO, by BAYARD TAYLOR Poet's Biography First Line: Do you sigh for the power you dream of Last Line: Are ever revealed! Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard Subject(s): Dreams; Life; Pride; Truth; Nightmares; Self-esteem; Self-respect | ||||||||
I. Do you sigh for the power you dream of, The fair, evasive secret, The rare imagined passion, O Friend unknown! Do you haunt Egyptian portals, Where, within, the laboring goddess Yields to the hands of her chosen The sacred child, alone? II. Ah, pause! There is consolation For you, and pride: Free of choice and worship, Spared the pang and effort, Nor partial made by triumph, The poet's limitations You lightly set aside: Revived, in your fresher spirit The buds of my thought may blossom And the clew, from weary fingers Fallen, become your guide! The taker, even as the giver, The user as the maker, Soil as seed, and rain as sunshine, Alike are glorified! III. Loss with gain is balanced; You may reach, when I but beckon; You may drink, though mine the vin tage, You complete what I begun. When at the temple-door I falter, You advance to the altar; I but rise to the daybreak, You to the sun! My goal is your beginning: My steeps of aspiration For you are won! IV. Hark! the nightingale is chanting As if her mate but knew; Yet the dream within me Which the bird-voice wakens, Takes from her unconscious Prompting, form and hue: So the song I sing you, Voice alone of my being, Song for the mate and the nestling, Finer and sweeter meaning May possess for you! Lifting to starry summits, Filling with infinite passion, While the witless singer broodeth In the darkness and the dew! V. Carved on the rock as an arrow To point your path, am I: A cloud that tells, in the heavens, Which way the breezes fly: A brook that is born in the meadows, And wanders at will, nor guesses Whither its waters hie: A child that scatters blossoms, Thoughtless of memoried odors, Or sweet surprises of color, That waken when you go by: A bee-bird of the woodland, That finds the honeyed hollows Of ancient oaks, for others, -- Even as these, am I! VI. Accept, and enjoy, and follow, -- Conquer wherein I yield! Make yours the bright conclusion, From me concealed! Truth, to whom will possess it, Beauty to whom embraces, Song and its inmost secret, Life and its unheard music, To whom will hear and know them, Are ever revealed! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ROCK AND HAWK by ROBINSON JEFFERS GODOLPHIN HORNE, WHO WAS CURSED WITH THE SIN OF PRIDE, AND BECAME A BOOT-BLACK by HILAIRE BELLOC PRIDE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE THIN EDGE OF YOUR PRIDE: 1 by KENNETH REXROTH PRIMER LESSON by CARL SANDBURG HAEC FABULA DOCET by ROBERT FROST VICTIM OF HIMSELF by MARVIN BELL BEDOUIN [LOVE] SONG by BAYARD TAYLOR NATIONAL ODE; INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA by BAYARD TAYLOR |
|