Down from the rocky western steep Where now the sunset crumbles low The shepherd draws his sun-drowsed sheep Ringed in a rosy glow; Along the dusty leaf-hung lane, Now blurred in shade, now bright again, They trail in splendour, aureoled And mystical in clouded gold. As insubstantial as a dream They huddle homeward by my door, -- From what Theocritean stream Or what Thessalian shore? What ancient air surrounds them still, As though from some Arcadian hill They shuffled through the afterglow Across the fields of long ago? Is this the flock that Bion kept From straying by his reed-soft tunes While the long ilex shadow crept Through ancient afternoons? In some still Arethusan wood, Ages agone, have they not stood Wondering, circle-wise and mute, Round some remote Sicilian flute? I think that they have gazed across The dazzle of Ionian seas From the green capes of Tenedos Or sea-washed Cyclades, And loitered through the twilight down The hills that gird some Attic town Still shining in the early gloam Beside the murmur of the foam. What dream is this? I know the croft, Deep in this dale, where they were born; I know their wind-swept hills aloft Among the rustling corn; Yet while they glimmer slowly by A younger earth, a fairer sky Seem round them and they move sublime Among the dews of dawning time. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CLEAR AND COLDER; BOSTON COMMON by ROBERT FROST ON TALK OF PEACE AT THIS TIME by ROBERT FROST A MID-DAY DREAMER by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON CHAMBER MUSIC: 9 by JAMES JOYCE YOUNG LINCOLN by EDWIN MARKHAM BOYHOOD FRIENDS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ALBERT SCHIRDING by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |