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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO NINE WHO VANISHED LONG AGO, by RAYMOND HOLDEN First Line: O beautiful, wind-blown Last Line: Haunting rembered bloom. Alternate Author Name(s): Holden, Raymond Peckham | |||
O, beautiful, wind-blown, Compassionate young nine! Upon what fire-forged stone, By what sun-kindled pine Should kneel this body of mine? From silver-silled long nights, From prismed webs of dew, From valleys and blown heights I have cried out for you As Beauty bade me do. How, how shall I fall As leaves fall to a dust That takes and tries them all? How shall this being trust Its range to the world's crust? O, dead, deep-buried Girls Sunk now to the fierce core Wherefrom the soul's fire whirls, How shall I suffer more With none to suffer for? O, beautiful, wind-blown, Unanswering dear Nine! Upon what brutal stone Beneath what heedless pine Shall I fling this body of mine? In the still-chambered night My heart gives tears to eyes That ache for absent light, Knowing, magician-wise That sunk suns may not rise, Nor with them the conceived Sweet ministers to minds Which now are interleaved With waters and with winds Where more than darkness blinds. O, you who once deferred The tragic fall of pain Inevitable, who heard The sad sweep of that rain Which nourished man's first brain, You who gave speech to men's Far-fathoming strange gift, Look now through the sharp lens Of eyes that wetly lift Toward storm too deep to rift! Look! Look! This troubled soul! This water in the eyes! Lift up the broken bowl And scatter to the skies These drops which life denies! Oh, vanished, vivid, Friends! In what wind-raftered hollow Under this sky that bends With weight of sun and swallow Lie the lost limbs I follow? I -- the infirm old child Of a still-eager womb! A ghost, among things piled Like walls that make a tomb, Haunting rembered bloom. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HELEN, THE SAD QUEEN by PAUL VALERY A CHILD'S PRAYER [OR, HYMN] by MATILDA BARBARA BETHAM-EDWARDS THE AEOLIAN HARP by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TORTOISE SHELL by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE VIRGINIA - THE WEST by WALT WHITMAN NOT TO BE MINISTERED TO by MALTBIE DAVENPORT BABCOCK PSALM 119 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE THE BOY AND THE FLUTE by BJORNSTJERNE MARTINIUS BJORNSON A CHILD'S GRACE AT FLORENCE; A.A.E.C. by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING |
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