Collected Poems by William Alexander Percy Read Free Book Online Page B

you
    They say there was a miracle!
    Go! But birds, my birds, come back to me!
ARCADY LOST
    The cherry bloom and robin time of year
    Again is come; and we that shepherd still
    Among less heavenly pastures feel the fear
    Of spring again, and all the tears that thrill
    But never fall. Last night, across the shine
    Of iris-tinted skies, I heard the dim
    Enraptured song we knew, the dire divine
    Music, that once, beyond the violet rim
    Of pain, could waft us clear to where, our own,
    Th’ unstable faery shores of ecstasy
    Burn in the twilight of an April sea.
    Our music came last night to me alone.
    No more may song nor petalled fluttering
    Upbreathe frail, frail delight as in the days
    We clung together here. Instead, they bring
    The pain of hearts that, glamourous still with spring,
    Break, and the dread of star-lit, lonely ways
    Where once, O comrade mine, we heard them sing.
ON LEAVING TAORMINA
    O almond trees, beneath whose fruited shade
    I lay these summer days and saw the sea,
    The hills of Mola, and Calabria’s jade,
    Good-bye! Perhaps the god that yielded me
    Such luxury of happiness, these clear
    And brimming hours with you, will, in his grace,
    Yield none again; and, summer, finding here
    Your branches green, will find again the place
    I love, not me. Thro’ all the leafy years,
    Others will come and love your loveliness;
    Love with a heart as gay and free of fears
    As mine, and, leaving, leave their souls no less.
    But, ah, for me, when spring stands in the door,
    Take on, I pray, one shade of pink the more.
DUSK: ASSUAN
    Serene, he mounts the minaret of day;
    Where purple spreads the world his footsteps pause.
    Splendors from whence he rose still flame his grey
    And amethystine robes to golden gauze.
    Priestly and pure, he stands within the curve
    Precipitous that fronts the chasmed west.
    The blowing birds that wove his hem in swerve
    And arabesque of jet, flicker to rest.
    And now his voice, a tide of silence, pours
    Across the desert’s pallor and the palms:
    “Come forth to God from all your darkened doors.”
    Who pause for prayer? Partake the sacred calms?
    Pass and repass the women with their jars;
    But faithful come those worshipers, the stars.
THE COAST OF BOHEMIA
    Like some still angel who, in toilless might,
    The empyrean cleaves with unstirred wings,
    Heedless of his proud speed save where it springs
    About his feet like blown, quick-curling light —
    So passed our ship in soft, gloom-charmèd flight,
    Midmost a huge, drear shade of sea and air,
    Voiceless, indissoluble, saving where
    Prowwards awoke two folds of fiery white.
    The wash of dim infinity, the swoon
    Of vasty quiet hushed us. Then the least
    Dawn quivered — nay, the east dreamed of the moon.
    Breathless, we watched. Again! Ah, elfin east!
    The white day leaped upon the world. The miles
    Of sea flamed loose — and then we saw those isles.
TO THE MISSISSIPPI
    They came from fierce, burnt Spain to seek for gold
    Upon thy shores, and with superb, strange prows
    Dazzled the wilderness. Their proud, swarth brows
    With gorgeous lust of gems and trove made bold
    The river folk feared as the gods of old.
    But, lo! thy gods awaking, the deep drowse
    Of death their chief assuaged of quests and vows,
    And him, not disillusioned, thou didst fold.
    No dreams of gold or jeweled glebe now force
    Thy stream with ships adventuring; and tho’
    Thy flood in yellowed opulence doth flow,
    ’Tis not from stain of deep, corroded treasure.
    Imperial indolence is thine and pleasure
    Of hot, long listlessness and moody course.
IN DALMATIA
    A brotherhood of bleached, air-scourgèd peaks
    In desolation watch the Illyrian sea.
    Them twice the lidless day brings ecstasy;
    Their leperous fronts but twice a splendor freaks.
    Once, when the anguish-heedful dawn unspeaks
    Their woe with rich, deep-blushed divinity;
    Again, when ’neath eve’s balm they tower free
    Like Tyrian tents of purple-amorous sheiks.
    As they with light, so man with vision twice
    Scorns pain.