Classic and Contemporary Poetry
WHEN SUMMER EVEN SOFTLY DIES, by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS Poet's Biography Last Line: How babe and mother clasp and kiss Alternate Author Name(s): Myers, Frederic Subject(s): Sea; Love; Mothers; Children | ||||||||
WHEN summer even softly dies, When summer winds are free, A thousand lamps, a thousand eyes, Shall glimmer in the sea: O look how large, behind, below, The lucid creatures glance and glow! They strew with soft and fiery foam Her streaming way from home to home. So shines the deep, but high above, Beyond the cloudy bars, The old infinity of love Looks silent from the stars: When parted friends no more avail Those sleepless watchers shall not fail, They learn her looks, they list her sighs, They love her soft beseeching eyes. Then in the woman's heart is born The child's delight anew, The Highland glory of the morn, The rowans bright with dew; She hears the flooding stream that falls By those ancestral castle-walls, Her father's woods are tossing free Between her and the southern sea. Or lovely in a lovely place One offers as she stands Sister to sister sweet embrace And hospitable hands; White-robed as once in happy hours She stood a rose among the flowers, And heart to heart would speak and tell The reason why we loved her well. So in a dream the nights go by, So in a dream the days, Till, when the good ship knows anigh The Asian waterways, From home to home her love shall set And hope be stronger than regret, And rest renew and prayer control Her sweet unblemishable soul. The waves subside; she stems at last That Hellespontine stream; Her ocean-dreams are overpast, Or is this too a dream? For child and husband, fast and fain, Have clasped her in their arms again: Let only mothers murmur this, How babe and mother clasp and kiss. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE THREE CHILDREN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN CHILDREN SELECTING BOOKS IN A LIBRARY by RANDALL JARRELL COME TO THE STONE ... by RANDALL JARRELL THE LOST WORLD by RANDALL JARRELL A SICK CHILD by RANDALL JARRELL CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS ON THE DEATH OF FRIENDS IN CHILDHOOD by DONALD JUSTICE MEMORY OF A PORCH by DONALD JUSTICE ON A GRAVE AT GRINDELWALD by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS |
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