Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE MEETING, by PAUL FORT First Line: Dawn tints the earth with rose, and all the balconies' gold palimpsest Last Line: Deck the primrose-way, if you but willed it, of our love? Subject(s): Dawn; Kisses; Love; Sunrise | ||||||||
Dawn tints the earth with rose, and all the balconies' gold palimpsest. 'Tis the boulevard Sebastopol. On the sky-line glooms the gare de l'Est. All night I must have tramped the mire, an airing to my griefs to give. No longer did I care to live. Then to catch cold was my desire. Sunlight at heart, 'tis a romance! Well, my heart is warmed again, I find. I have seen, in a heaven blue-of-France, the wandering clouds, all crimson-lined. In rose I see black buildings high. The trees are rose, the air is rose. It has rained, and all the roofs are rose. The pavement mirrors back the sky. I hear my heart. The sun's gold ball mounts. Chestnut-trees are flowering bright on the boulevard Sebastopol grown infinitely pure and light. All gleams, the gare de l'Est itself, the puddle that I splatter through. I laugh, as does that little elf with rosy mud upon her shoe. I'm cold no more. I laugh, I run. How brisk one feels at dawn of day! And I pursue a little fay who wades through pools of dazzling sun. There's no more thought of dying now. Dawn! And I see the gold signs flare. I see flushed trees and crimsoned air, and, aglow, my heart to you I vow, O little maiden, splashing gay through the roses of the Boulevard, and I forget, dawn's little fay, all evening's daughters, grim and hard. A kiss, yes! and I give you all the roses on the soil's fair breast, and the balconies' gold palimpsest, and the boulevard Sebastopol, on the horizon the gare de l'Est! Triumph! . . . as that sweet kiss I take each building to its roof-tree glows. - - Will you accept, for a poet's sake, Paris, that wondrous, burning rose? and the Victory's gold wings above the fountain of the Chatelet? Two crowns to deck the primrose-way, if you but willed it, of our love? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THIS MORNING, GOD by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR BURNING DAWN by HAYDEN CARRUTH DAWN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON IN THE GARDEN AT THE DAWN HOUR by EDGAR LEE MASTERS EARLY RISER by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE WORDS WHEN WE NEED THEM by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE A PORTFOLIO OF SKETCHES: THE LITTLE ANNUITANT by PAUL FORT |
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