Just because you painted it so, Ma-lin, The rock and the pine-tree springing from it and the water, And the sampan half fading round The dark of the rock toward the high cliff That dimly shadows the distance, Where birds are only wings, I know that you loved vanishing things. And I know you felt as the sampan passed on the river flowing That life as a wind in a dream is ever going, And that its strange sad evanescence Alone brings beauty's presence. And I know that the lean of the pine out over the water Meant to your sense, as now to mine, The mute mysterious immanence Of death in the world; And that, because of death's suffusion, You longed to think all things Illusion. Yes, Ma-Lin, brother of mine, I know these things, Though a thousand years have flown since then Under the bridge of the sky, And though no longer you look on it, but I. For graciously thus does the magic of art Give wings to the heart! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WISDOM COMETH WITH THE YEARS by COUNTEE CULLEN SPECIAL EFFECTS by JAMES GALVIN AFTER VERLAINE by ANSELM HOLLO MODULATIONS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE RETURN (2) by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |