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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO HER by MARY DILLINGHAM FREAR

First Line: YOUR LIFE WAS LYRIC. WHEN THE WOODS WERE DUMB
Last Line: YOU DANCE AND STRIKE THE LYRE?
Your life was lyric. When the woods were dumb,
And April's heralds failed to come,
Lilting and jocund your prophetic ear
Caught the first wistful notes of spring,
And heard in ecstasy the whirring wing
Of the awakening year.

In breathless days of August yours the thrill
Of silvery ripples on the hill;
You spread your joyous wings and blithely danced.
In answer to the south wind's moan
You called the trade wind in a clarion tone;
You laughed; you were entranced.

Always an oasis the desert held
For you where cooling waters welled,
Purling through meadow grasses of your mind.
Far inland you would hear the roar
Of breakers, and exulting in that shore
You leaped to meet your kind.

O Lyric Love, tell me how do you fare
Beyond our sea, beyond our air,
But not beyond my fountain of desire!
A sister to the Pleiades,
Upon the hills of heaven, by starry seas,
You dance and strike the lyre?



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