Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE ISLE, by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY Poet's Biography First Line: All day the island-world had been Last Line: Nor any lover own. Subject(s): Dreams; Islands; Nightmares | ||||||||
ALL day the island-world had been To me a finer sphere, And all that I had touched or seen Grew intimate and dear; The world of recollection slept, It had no power to stir, -- So sky and sea and mountain kept Me beauty's prisoner. Far from the human-haunted shore In sunk and cloven dells, Deep nooks, where caverned waters pour, I dipped in iris wells; There silence seemed a higher sense Than is known unto the ear, And life a being more intense Than doth anywhere appear. An arm's-breadth off she breathed the wild, Her face was golden fair, A Greek girl, supple, warm and mild, And half her figure bare; She stood so lightly on the mould, So silently, so near, I felt the forest round her fold A phantom atmosphere. And all about such faun-like bliss Was breathing from the scene! Those aery rocks, that green abyss, Antiquity had been! She glided down the dark-stemmed wood, -- Ah, had she known! the grace Of an immortal sisterhood Was on her form and face. Old isle! what handed lovers oft Wandered in thy dark grove, With undropped eyes and touches soft, Kisses, and vows, and love! Ah, had she known, -- would she have fled And let the glamour die, Or covert on to covert led And answered sigh with sigh? I came where shores in moonlight slept On the dark violet air, As if in dreams their slumbers kept A reign of memory there, -- As if a thousand years ago Something from them had flown, Ocean nor heaven no more shall know, Nor any lover own. | 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 AT GIBRALTAR by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY |
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