Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE TOWER, by JOHN FREEMAN Poet's Biography First Line: Sunk between cool meadows Last Line: The snowy gables of the sky. Subject(s): Buildings & Builders | ||||||||
SUNK between cool meadows The waters slide, Lapping the soil as lightly as long shadows That slowly eastward glide With the slow tide. Here are the rippled holes Where the shy sudden hunted water-voles Are in and out before the eye marked well Their coming and going. Above, the broken edge Of grass and trampled sedge And grass again, and one lone willow stooping Her arms to clasp the arms that rise to hers, And leaves on wet leaves drooping, Though nothing stirs Except that white Armada on the proud Breast of the stream. Now the white sails swell As the wind darts among the airy crowd. And now disperse So slowly that the eye cannot mark well Their gradual unbuilding as the cloud Spreads at the wind's spell. Under the willow where great kingcups are The only flower and every flower a star In the green grass, I watch the white wind pass Amid the cloud andere the eye mark well Building not ships but towers of monstrous height, With lancets shooting forth a startling light, And battlements heroic, and steep flight Of lesser towers, and shadow-moat below: Upheaved a-sudden against the marching might Of far-off night. And yonder, humbler gables in the glow Of the clouds' lesser white, And windows in the clouds roofed as with snow, And scarce below Ely's vast fortress Tower uplifted nigh The snowy gables of the sky. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BUILDINGS by WENDELL BERRY INCONGRUOUS BUILDERS by AIME CESAIRE HAIL TEESSIDE! by CECIL DAY LEWIS |
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