Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A NOCTURNE, by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A NOCTURNE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O maiden moon, o tender rim of light
Last Line: And round the circle of your mortal fate.
Subject(s): Night; Bedtime


I

O maiden moon, O tender rim of light
A golden cradle on a gloaming sky;
A phoenix fluttering from a burning nest,
Above the fading fires of the west;
Brand blown from ashes where day's glories lie;
You rise, daughter of day, to rule the night.

II

Have you no mercy on that earthly maid
Who steals side-glances skyward when you're due,
And trembles if she sees you glowing there?
She loves and dreads the fortunes that you bear;
Her shoulders shrinking, her fair face askew,
To find you on the wrong side sore afraid.

III

I've watched your boat put out on flaming seas,
Along black coasts of ragged mountain tops,
Like some immortal lingering to the last.
Your low-swung sickle, sunny summer past,
Above the evening mist, guards tented crops,
While drear owls whinny in the dripping trees.

IV

O earth, is yours too squalid a domain
For this girl Queen, upon whose eyes
Deformity and darkness wrought such shame,
She could not bear aloft her heavenly flame,
She dare not in your hidden deeds be wise;
But fled, her innocency to maintain?

V

O misty, shadowy earth, what weakling wiles
Allured a heaven-born bride to stay with you?
Now longer on your dark face she can gaze,
Now fuller light illuminates your ways,
She blanches not, nor, shuddering, shrinks from view
But bravely looks on land and sea and isles.

VI

Far wandering Queen, grown now to orbed estate!
The gabbling winds, what waft they to your ears,
From murmuring forest and from moaning sea?
The story of Endymion's misery?
That all night long you travel but to hear
A prayer poured from a soul disconsolate.

VII

Have mortal lovers guessed your wondrous plight,
(You find on earth a joy unknown above
And stay self-exiled from your native realms),
That they, at tryst with you neath village elms,
When locust's clustered sweetness maddens love,
Pass breathing deep the perfumes of the night.

VIII

I loved you best, Empress of shades, before.
Then your wide eyes would not unfurl their light
To view their heritage; earth's blatant tongue
Spoke words, told tales unknown to one so young;
Companioned by a star, you swayed the night
With bashful eyes, nor all your radiance wore.

IX

O blind me not with your resplendent power,
Who challenge heaven's high kings in sovereignty.
Those princes, banished, feebly shine afar;
For jealous of the glimmering of a star,
You reign alone and from your treasury
Unloose on earth and sea a golden shower.

X

If fairer beauty rouse me from fair dreams
To keep lone vigil while the weary sleep,
Let woven branches wrap me in their night,
Let fretted shade emboss your golden light,
Nor stand supreme, above the servile deep,
Restless beneath its robe of radiant beams.

XI

Or loom, prodigious disc, o'er city roofs,
Your brightness brooding human wretchedness,
Its huddled slumbers and brief hour of dreams.
Then pitying pour your glory and your gleams
Aslant the window of each heart's distress
And gild the pavement hushed of horses' hoofs.

XII

Can heaven not stoop to earth and heaven remain?
Can heaven not rule on earth in clean attire?
At mortal touch O must a goddess die?
Are they not deathless that are born on high,
Who are not children of the muck and mire,
But from the gods descended here to reign.

XIII

Cannot your sisters link their golden hands
And rescue you, limed in earth's poisonous reek?
Gaunt death must be divine if you can die;
Sin be eternal that can mount the sky
And kill where love is strong and hate is weak.
Can earth's disasters reach such distant lands?

XIV

Pale maidens mad for motherhood mock you,
With self-slain youths frenzied by love's starved doles --
Sad faces sucked beneath your crawling seas.
These mock you, dying with the pangs of these,
A wan processional of leaf-blown souls,
Fading from form, whom horror's hounds pursue.

XV

O let at dawn no most untimely song,
Of some sweet bird impatient for the day,
Awaken me to mourn at your sad end.
Your withered form your guards will not defend,
They see the sun's shield gleaming far away,
They hear his car fast thundering along.

XVI

But fetch me from the East an opiate,
Lest, luckless, I espy you meet the fire
That gave you life and now at last returns,
That gave you life which now it fiercely burns.
Like morning mists, you, too, must needs expire
And round the circle of your mortal fate.





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