Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A CLASSICAL CONTRAST, by PATRICK REGINALD CHALMERS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A CLASSICAL CONTRAST, by                    
First Line: I have (in bronze) a tiny / adventuress of greece
Last Line: Of england or of greece!
Subject(s): England; Greece; English; Greeks


I HAVE (in bronze) a tiny
Adventuress of Greece,
A little laughing Phryne,
Upon my mantelpiece,
And when I see her smiling
Imagination strays
Once more in brave, beguiling,
Divine Athenian days!

Cool marble courts are ringing
As merry voices call,
Where girls are garland-stringing
For Springtime's festival;
In lanes of linkéd lightness
The roses rope, and flow
Blood-red upon the whiteness
Of chiselled Parian snow!

I have a pot of pewter,
And when the firelight gleams
I too will turn transmuter
Of commonplace to dreams.
Then, though the year's at ember
Once more high June doth reign
And I in dreams remember,—
And win the thing again!

On turf of headland thymy,
Where brine-washed breezes strive,
I lay the subtle stymie,
I drive the spanking drive;
I see the grey tides sleeping,
I watch the grey gulls wheel,
Till through the dusk come creeping
The lights of distant Deal!

O pewter and O Phryne,
Since both of you may bring
Your visions blue and briny
Or garlanded of Spring:
I welcome you together
Upon my mantelpiece,
And love both magics, whether
Of England or of Greece!





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