Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PEACH-BLOSSOM, by BAYARD TAYLOR Poet's Biography First Line: Nightly the hoar-frost freezes Last Line: And life shall never die! Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard Subject(s): Beauty; Death; Fruit; Life; Peaches; Spring; Dead, The | ||||||||
I. NIGHTLY the hoar-frost freezes The young grass of the field, Nor yet have blander breezes The buds of the oak unsealed: Not yet pours out the pine His airy resinous wine; But over the southern slope, In the heat and hurry of hope, The wands of the peach-tree first Into rosy beauty burst: A breath, and the sweet buds ope! A day, and the orchards bare, Like maids in haste to be fair, Lightly themselves adorn With a scarf the Spring at the door Has sportively flung before, Or a stranded cloud of the morn! II. What spirit of Persia cometh And saith to the buds, "Unclose!" Ere ever the first bee hummeth, Or woodland wild flower blows? What prescient soul in the sod Garlands each barren rod With fringes of bloom that speak Of the baby's tender breast, And the boy's pure lip unpressed, And the pink of the maiden's cheek? The swift, keen Orient so Prophesies as of old, While the apple's blood is cold, Remembering the snow. III. Afar, through the mellow hazes Where the dreams of June are stayed, The hills, in their vanishing mazes, Carry the flush, and fade! Southward they fall, and reach To the bay and the ocean beach, Where the soft, half-Syrian air Blows from the Chesapeake's Inlets and coves and creeks On the fields of Delaware! And the rosy lakes of flowers, That here alone are ours, Spread into seas that pour Billow and spray of pink Even to the blue wave's brink, All down the Eastern Shore! IV. Pain, Doubt, and Death are over! Who thinks, to-day, of toil? The fields are certain of clover, The gardens of wine and oil. What though the sap of the North Drowsily peereth forth In the orchards, and still delays? The peach and the poet know Under the chill the glow, And the token of golden days! V. What fool, to-day, would rather In wintry memories dwell? What miser reach to gather The fruit these boughs foretell? No, no! -- the heart has room For present joy alone, Light shed and sweetness blown, For odor and color and bloom! As the earth in the shining sky, Our lives in their own bliss lie; Whatever is taught or told, However men moan and sigh, Love never shall grow cold, And Life shall never die! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND BEDOUIN [LOVE] SONG by BAYARD TAYLOR NATIONAL ODE; INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA by BAYARD TAYLOR |
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