Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE RAVEN'S SHADOW, by WILLIAM WATSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE RAVEN'S SHADOW, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Seabird, elemental sprite
Last Line: Clasps creation with his claws.
Alternate Author Name(s): Watson, John William
Subject(s): Ravens


SEABIRD, elemental sprite,
Moulded of the sun and spray --
Raven, dreary flake of night
Drifting in the eye of day --
Over crag and moor and mead,
Whither, whither would ye speed?

"Me to eastward mine affairs --
Things of weight and moment -- call."
"Me to westward many cares
Summon -- mighty matters all."
I, where land and sea contest,
Watch you eastward, watch you west,

Till, in snares of fancy caught,
Mystically changed ye seem,
And the bird becomes a thought,
And the thought becomes a dream,
And the dream, outspread on high,
Lords it o'er the abject sky.

Surely I have known before
Phantoms of the shapes ye be --
Haunters of another shore
'Leaguered by another sea.
There my wanderings night and morn
Reconcile me to the bourn.

There the bird of happy wings
Wafts the ocean-news I crave;
Rumours of an isle he brings,
Gemlike on the golden wave.
But the baleful beak and plume
Scatter immelodious gloom.

Though the flowers be faultless made,
Perfectly to live and die --
Though the cloudlets bloom and fade
Flow'rlike in a meadowy sky --
Where this raven roams forlorn,
Veins of midnight flaw the morn.

He not less will croak and croak --
He that yonder caws and caws --
Till the starry dance be broke,
Till the sphery paean pause,
And the universal chime
Falter out of tune and time.

Coils the labyrinthine sea,
Duteous to the lunar will,
But some discord stealthily
Vexes the world-ditty still,
And the bird that caws and caws
Clasps creation with his claws.





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