Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NOVEMBER DAYS, by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER Poet's Biography First Line: Still days of late november Last Line: Over the plain, an unmarked drift of white. Subject(s): November | ||||||||
Still days of late November, Days when no motionless twig of all the leafless branches Stirs underneath the even grey of sky; Days that are but a lifting up, a falling away of pale light, Indifferent, without sorrow, Within my heart are dreams -- vague dreams that will not die. Long, long ago, Within a garden shade two souls met smiling, Two souls in which love blazed and flared and broke in waves of light, Like autumn's dry gold flickering in the leaves. Long, long ago, one heart Burnt out and smouldering, turned away from love, And lay long quenched beneath cold rains of sorrow, Having gained naught from life but foolish dreams. Brief days of late November, You stifle now the rapture and the failure Under your noonday, with thick folds of gloom. You bury love, yet living, Within a vault of darkness, Where not a cry comes from the sealed-up tomb. In after days The spring will break and from its heart come blazing Flowers of rose and crimson, glowing bright; But even these and the ripe fruits that shall follow, The thick ripe fruits red-crowded, heavy, cloying, Cannot recall the magic of old dreams. Sad days of late November, See now again love fails, in you there's parting, The dying out of the calm steadfast fire. Great seas of darkness roll between us, sundered, And for awhile love's last spark seems extinguished. Would that it never stirred again to life! The spring returns, And with the spring a white cross lifts itself, The symbol of the resurrection dawn; A love awakes that is not of this world, A love of hope, of patience, and of suffering: Time's acid eats away our crumbling strength. Dead days of late November, In which the world goes slowly and reluctantly, Out of a dream of summer, back to sleep; Return of that bleak presage of the future When in a lonely world of endless winter Sunless and loveless I shall strive and weep. I hear the snow, It whispers tonelessly, As it sifts slowly down Upon the frozen earth from the cold sky: Slipping and whispering, dropping without effort, It makes the long road where my feet have wandered Over the plain, an unmarked drift of white. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A DANGEROUS TIME by LINDA PASTAN XMAS COMING by KENNETH REXROTH LUNAR PARAPHRASE by WALLACE STEVENS THE REGION NOVEMBER by WALLACE STEVENS ARIZONA POEMS: 2. MEXICAN QUARTER by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER |
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