Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, by JOHN FREEMAN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When from you, sweet, I am away
Last Line: But never in flesh may I return.
Subject(s): Nature; Self


WHEN from you, Sweet, I am away,
What is it that's wanting to the day?
Something is gone from the bright skies,
Or vision from my staring eyes.
Music is wanting in the bird
That sings not now as when you heard.
There is such dulness in the grass
That leapt to feel your light foot pass;
Such stiffness in the aguish trees
That only whimper, lacking ease.
Nor is there sweetness in the flowers
As when you poured upon them yours.
There's heavy stupor in this pen
That writes not such gay things as when
You hold it and your fleet thoughts run
Dancing away ere I've begun.
O, it is that my body's here
While I am flying to you there
A hundred miles of hills and meadows
Between us stretch their green and shadows,
And Oxford towers and Reading's bricks,
And London's greedy, gulfing tricks ...
My thoughts spring over the Cotswold downs,
Past the green-smothered Oxford towns,
And like a star upon you leap
Awake and gay, or in deep sleep.
—How can it be, then, but all these
Birds and grasses and hills and trees
Have something lost of light and sweet?
But when my spirit and body meet,
And I, once more a being entire,
See you desired past all desire,
With your slim hands and clinging hair
And voice a music everywhere—
And your firm body and limbs as light
As the poplar swaying in the blue height;
When those pale depths of dreaming eyes
Are stirred and broken with surprise,
And from white brow to arrested foot
You pause, in silence taking root,
Till from my lips your joyful name
Sets you quivering like a flame;—
I shall not know if I did miss you
When I lift and kiss and kiss you.
For want is well forgotten when
Happiness overbrims again.

Unless the foolish thought ev'n then
Come circling back, of that time when
You for me, I for you shall yearn,
But never in flesh may I return.





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