Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HEADLAND ORCHARDS, by FREDERICK RIDGELY TORRENCE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HEADLAND ORCHARDS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: April lit the apple-flower and waved it
Last Line: Holy sailor of the starry vast.
Variant Title(s): I Will Send The Comforter


April lit the apple-flower and waved it,
Music nested on the spray,
Loudly called the lookout bird through rainbows,
Earth was curving into May.

In that hour the light from hillside orchards
Pierced me, and the heavens about
Opened, and before intenser burning,
Fire by fire myself went out.

Flashing seas beyond the melted skymark
Sang beneath another dome;
There my vision sailed to breathless knowledge,
Sailed and found and drew back home.

Peace was in me from the starry motion,
Then this breast bore One divine,
At Life's marriage feast the hidden Lover,
Master of the water and wine.

Through this flesh his suns of power and beauty
Warned the moaning worlds to song;
Bread and healing from my broken body
Fed the sky-bewildered throng.

Oh, my spirit would have freed earth's music,
Radiant, captive, yearning, mute;
Swift I plucked and held up apple branches,
Signals of the ripened fruit.

But the morning fell as leaves around me,
And the clay unpurified
Mocked me, scourged me, till the dove-like glory
Vanished from my wounded side.

Broken apple branches reaching sunward,
Distant sea and no sail spread,
These remain, and clouds above the hillside,
And the multitude unfed.

Yet my heart had found on one far island
Where the high dream dipped its prow,
Arrowy odors of immortal apples,
Raining from a golden bough.

Flame that led me in that hour of marvel,
Shall we ever win again
Past the sea-line to the fruit and bring it
Glorious for the hearts of men?

Helmsman, lover I am empty-handed,
Silent, empty, year on year,
But through all the skies my longing rises,
Longing, longing. Will you hear?

The Comforter Speaks:
My beloved, I have never left you.
Through your breath I breathe the night,
Through your veins my pulses flow in darkness,
But in deeper worlds is light.

Deep within you sweep the burning splendors
Brighter than your gaze can bear;
There I watch among the dawns within you,
Sky on sky is folded there.

There I see the outward heavens open
As the inner heavens unfold;
There, in tidal light, eternal islands
Orb the ever-living gold.

On those inward shores are fountains lifting
Powers and suns of endless might;
Songs of birth and gleams of dancers dancing
Wash the ripening worlds with light.

Inward branches bear those fires of marvel
Slowly in the lonely clay.
Whoso suffers for my flame shall slowly
Find me in the inner day.

Wanderers deepening to those bright horizons
Hidden by the bosom's wall,
Slowly as through music long forgotten
Reach me and remember all.

Lonely one in silences unyielding,
I am there whom tears conceal;
After victories I am in the stillness,
Underneath despairs I heal.

Whoso suffers for my vision to bring it starlike
Earthward out of dream at last,
Bears the fruit and deepens homeward from the darkness,
Holy sailor of the starry vast.





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