Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ROSE BOWER, by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ROSE BOWER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A crimson bower the garden glows
Last Line: Shines with immortal worth.
Subject(s): Calm; Immortality; Life; Nature; Placid; Undisturbed; Tranquility


A CRIMSON bower the garden glows,
In overhanging noon, intense and bare,
Enisled and bathed in silence and repose,
As it were mirrored on the azure air;
All molten lies the faint blue-shimmering deep,
Impalpably transparent, smooth with light;
Far in the fragrant pines the hot winds sleep;
And nothing moves, and all dark things are bright.
Yet is this fair round of tranquillity,
This swathe of color, wheresoe'er it be,
The burning shell of elemental strife;
And never yet so fleeting seemed sweet life;
So fragile this thin film of human eyes,
In whose slight orb are springtime and sunrise;
So perishable this incandescent frame,
Lone Nature's inextinguishable pyre
Of transitory loveliness and bliss —
This undulating and eternal flame
Of beauty burning in its perfumed fire,
And passion dying in its tropic kiss.
Even now the sweet-hued vision sinks away,
And from these bathing flames of night and day,
As in my hour to come it soon may seem
When fades to ashes earth's majestic dream,
My soul springs up erect, alone, supreme,
And, passing from this glory, doth survey,
As some spent meteor's low and dying gleam,
This radiant life that burns all else away,
Consuming its own star; a moment, where
About my feet morning and evening flare,
My spirit gazes, still a stranger there,
On this dear human home, so sweet, so fair,
Nor yet unfolds aloft eternal wings.
Then slowly lapsing into sensuous things,
Once more do I inhale this glorious light,
Breathe the soft air and feel the flowering earth,
And on me comes the everlasting sea,
Purple horizons, emerald-hanging woods,
The rose bower, and love's blissful solitudes,
Where voices of eternity
Have wandered from my birth,
And nothing save love's mystery
Shines with immortal worth.





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