Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE GUESTS OF NIGHT, by BAYARD TAYLOR Poet's Biography First Line: I ride in a gloomy land Last Line: And the loves that are, remain. Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard Subject(s): Death; Guests; Love; Night; Dead, The; Visiting; Bedtime | ||||||||
I RIDE in a gloomy land, I travel a ghostly shore, -- Shadows on either hand, Darkness behind and before; Veils of the summer night Dusking the woods I know; A whisper haunts the height, And the rivulet croons below. A waft from the roadside bank Tells where the wild-rose nods; The hollows are heavy and dank With the steam of the golden-rods Incense of Night and Death, Odors of Life and Day, Meet and mix in a breath, Drug me, and lapse away. Is it the hand of the Past, Stretched from its open tomb, Or a spell from thy glamoury cast, O mellow and mystic gloom? All, wherein I have part, All that was loss or gain, Slips from the clasping heart, Breaks from the grasping brain. Lo, what is left? I am bare As a new-born soul, -- I am naught; My deeds are as dust in air, My words are as ghosts of thought. I ride through the night alone, Detached from the life that seemed, And the best I have felt or known Is less than the least I dreamed. But the Night, like Agrippa's glass, Now, as I question it, clears; Over its vacancy pass The shapes of the crowded years; Meanest and most august, Hated or loved, I see The dead that have long been dust, The living, so dead to me! Place in the word's applause? Nay, there is nothing there! Strength from unyielding laws? A gleam, and the glass is bare. The lines of a life in song? Faint runes on the rocks of time? I see but a formless throng Of shadows that fall or climb. What else? Am I then despoiled Of the garments I wove and wore? Have I so refrained and toiled, To find there is naught in store? I have loved, -- I love! Behold, How the steady pictures rise! And the shadows are pierced with gold From the stars of immortal eyes. Nearest or most remote, But dearest, hath none delayed; And the spirits of kisses float O'er the lips that never fade. The Night each guest denies Of the hand or haughty brain, But the loves that were, arise, And the loves that are, remain. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BREATH OF NIGHT by RANDALL JARRELL HOODED NIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP by ROBINSON JEFFERS WORKING OUTSIDE AT NIGHT by DENIS JOHNSON POEM TO TAKE BACK THE NIGHT by JUNE JORDAN COOL DARK ODE by DONALD JUSTICE POEM TO BE READ AT 3 A.M by DONALD JUSTICE ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT by BOB KAUFMAN BEDOUIN [LOVE] SONG by BAYARD TAYLOR NATIONAL ODE; INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA by BAYARD TAYLOR |
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