Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ROMANS IN DORSET; A.D. 1895, by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: A stupor on the heath Last Line: My juvenal! Distraught with love of violated law. Subject(s): Dreams; Roman Empire; Vision; Nightmares | ||||||||
A stupor on the heath, And wrath along the sky; Space everywhere; beneath A flat and treeless wold for us, and darkest noon on high. Sullen quiet below, But storm in upper air! A wind from long ago, In mouldy chambers of the cloud had ripped an arras there, And singed the triple gloom, And let through, in a flame, Crowned faces of old Rome: Regnant o'er Rome's abandoned ground, processional they came. Uprisen as any sun Through vistas hollow grey, Aloft, and one by one, In brazen casques the Emperors loomed large, and sank away. In ovals of wan light Each warrior eye and mouth: A pageant brutal bright As if once over loudly passed Jove's laughter in the south; And dimmer, these among, Some cameo'd head aloof, With ringlets heavy-hung, Like yellow stonecrop comely grown around a castle roof. An instant: guests again, Then heaven's impacted wall, The hot insistent rain, The thunder-shock; and of the Past mirage no more at all, No more the alien dream Pursuing, as we went, With glory's cursed gleam: Nor sin of Caesar's ruined line engulfed us, innocent. The vision great and dread Corroded; sole in view Was empty Egdon spread, Her crimson summer weeds ashake in tempest: but we knew What Tacitus had borne In that wrecked world we saw; And what, thine heart uptorn, My Juvenal! distraught with love of violated Law. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VARIATIONS: 14 by CONRAD AIKEN VARIATIONS: 18 by CONRAD AIKEN LIVE IT THROUGH by DAVID IGNATOW A DREAM OF GAMES by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN THE DREAM OF WAKING by RANDALL JARRELL APOLOGY FOR BAD DREAMS by ROBINSON JEFFERS GIVE YOUR WISH LIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS A FRIEND'S SONG FOR SIMOISIUS by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY |
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