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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
LETHE, by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN Poet's Biography First Line: There is a scent of roses and spilt wine Last Line: Is part of life and of the soul's desire. Subject(s): Forgetfulness | |||
I THERE is a scent of roses and spilt wine Between the moonlight and the laurel coppice; The marble idol glimmers on its shrine, White as a star, among a heaven of poppies. Here all my life lies like a spilth of wine. There is a mouth of music like a lute, A nightingale that sigheth to one flower; Between the falling flower and the fruit, Where love hath died, the music of an hour. II To sit alone with memory and a rose; To dwell with shadows of whilom romances; To make one hour of a year of woes And walk on starlight, in ethereal trances, With love's lost face fair as a moon-white rose, To shape from music and the scent of buds Love's spirit and its presence of sweet fire, Between the heart's wild burning and the blood's, Is part of life and of the soul's desire. III There is a song to silence and the stars, Between the forest and the temple's arches; And down the stream of night, like nenuphars, The tossing fires of the revellers' torches.-- Here all my life waits lonely as the stars.-- Shall not one hour of all those hours suffice For resignation God hath given as dower? Between the summons and the sacrifice One hour of love, th' eternity of an hour? IV The shrine is shattered and the bird is gone; Dark is the house of music and of bridal; The stars are stricken and the storm comes on; Lost in a wreck of roses lies the idol, Sad as the memory of a joy that's gone.-- To dream of perished gladness and a kiss, Waking the last chord of love's broken lyre, Between remembering and forgetting, this Is part of life and of the soul's desire. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TWO SONNETS: 1 by DAVID LEHMAN THE MUSIC BOX by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE MUDDY KID COMES HOME by SANDRA CISNEROS FUNCTIONAL FORGETTING by STEPHEN DOBYNS SHOYN FERGESSIN: 'I'VE FORGOTTEN' IN YIDDISH by ALBERT GOLDBARTH THE GIFT TO SING by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON SINGING BACK THE WORLD by DORIANNE LAUX IT'S NOT COLD HERE by ELEANOR WILNER KU KLUX by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN |
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