|
|
Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FANTASIA ON CLAVIERS AT NIGHT, by HERBERT TRENCH Poet's Biography First Line: I watch'd a white-hair'd figure like a breeze Last Line: "thou hast another day!" Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Travel | |||
I WATCH'D a white-hair'd Figure like a breeze Pass, with a smile, down the bare galleries And heard his ancient fingers, as he went, Muse on the heart of each blind instrument. SPINET. "Shoaling through twilight to my silver tinglings The great-ruff'd ladies beset with pearl Come out with the gallants in gems of Cadiz In lofty capriols with loud spur-jinglings In Roman galliard and in blithe coranto Learnt in far Otranto Brought home in the galleys of the Earl -- Storm-riding galleys of the haughty Earl -- To English valleys. They come With reverences stately at meeting In mockeries sedately retreating And stomachers and buckles and rings Shake a maze of jewels to the measured strings, Of trembling jewels. Ay, moonlight's fair in yew-clipt alleys, And young Love fledges His shafts 'twixt cypress hedges. Follow the rout, and watch in gentle wind The springing moonbeam of the fountain sway'd Like to a mountain maid Who turns with poised jar From bubbling hollow cool. 'Behold, how't tosses rain of star-drops hither Into main blackness of the pool -- Rings ever shimmering out and sheen reborn; So, thou and I, lady, must die, To wake, as echoes wake, of yonder horn With volcelest over the hills of morn. Ah, satin-quilted kirtle, Ah, pearled bosom, Let slip one flake of blossom, Deign but a sprig of myrtle, To the poor Fool, panting on his bended knee!' But silent grow the long swards cedar-shaded Where the young loves were sitting; And lo, in the silver-candled hall The bat is flitting, flitting, The tapestries are dusk upon the wall And the ladies bright, brocaded, All, with their blushes, faded!" HARPSICHORD. "Now ye, the delicate patterers of the hush, Birds, hither! Scarce-rustlers of the sere involved leaf Who mourn for summers past with elfin grief, Ye who can hear along the inmost lawn Ebbings and flowings shrill When subtle ballads net the rime-cold daffodil And drift over the blue turf so nigh dumb They startle not from's gloom e'en the airy fawn. Old Antony on his Nile-barge at dawn Caught your deck-walkings countless overhead And eased with ye a heart eclipsed and dead. Come swift, come soon Drift, like a veil over the moon, And rising round this crumbling Keep Shed ye, upon the sleepless, sleep!" CLAVICHORD. "'Wherefore, poor Fool, dost lie -- Love, cap and bells put by -- On thy pallet-bed so stark?' 'I am girt, soul and limb, 'Gainst horror dim. Ear tense to hark Mine eyeballs strain and swim Drowning in foamy dark. Comes no shock Nor earthly foot But the heart's blood, ebb'd with the chill tower-clock To a single beat, Clots to a fear That God may appear -- None other eye being near -- And bare of his mantle of law Stand, a giant Spirit beautiful Somber, pale, in avenging mail, Wings folded, on this planet's skull; And before Him dropping like fine rain, A veil o' the cloud o' the dust of kings Noiseless descending the old Abyss. . . . Ah then, after this How gentle through the dark paths of the brain Comes the faint noise of outer things; The whirr and shower of wings -- Satin shufflings of ivy leaves Ranging like bees the leaden pane -- Jolting of carters, cries of falconers -- The blessed courtyard stirs That do in mercy say Thou hast another day!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...RICHARD, WHAT'S THAT NOISE? by RICHARD HOWARD LOOKING FOR THE GULF MOTEL by RICHARD BLANCO RIVERS INTO SEAS by LYNDA HULL DESTINATIONS by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN THE ONE WHO WAS DIFFERENT by RANDALL JARRELL THE CONFESSION OF ST. JIM-RALPH by DENIS JOHNSON SESTINA: TRAVEL NOTES by WELDON KEES |
| |