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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ODE ON A SILVER BIRCH IN ST. JAMES'S PARK, by HERBERT TRENCH Poem Explanation Poet's Biography First Line: Muse, I will show thee, on a grassy mound Last Line: Is blind! Subject(s): Birch Trees | |||
I MUSE, I will show thee, on a grassy mound Moving with tufted shadows, albeit bare Herself, for yet young April primes the air And bloom snow-laden boughs, the tree I love. London doth compass it with shores of sound And thrills the buds when there's no breath above To shake its fountain beauty. Thus I came Along the courtly mere of thicket isles, And Spring entoil'd me in a hundred wiles, Bringing the heart content without a name. Broods, russet-plumed and emerald, steer'd on With arrowy wake adown the placid tide And in the gloomy pool there rode enskied, Aloof, the stately languor of a swan. But now the lake sets hither with a breeze And crooks the peel'd bole of its planes. -- Ah there Thou shalt find audience -- yon's my shadowy love! -- O'er head a rose-gray pigeon beat his wings About his 'lighted mate, and wooed the bough And passion born of sight of mortal things In warmth of living, moved and moves me now As from the careless height that sways above Floateth his voice, the soul of greening trees! II Approaching 'twixt the herald saplings pale Whose light arrayment is a whirl of green Of flamelets dropping for a virgin veil, I come. Though Hades' crocus-jets are stayed, Soft! for a golden troop instead upsprung Gossips apart in yon unfooted glade. Broke we on earshot of that frolic tongue Straightway would all be husht, they being afraid To sing't to simple ear of mutest maid. III But thou, still silver Spirit, unappall'd Standest alone, and with thy senses dim Feeling the first warmth fledge the unleafed limb Hearest no tread of mine, O Sun-enthrall'd! What buried God conceived thee, and forestall'd In the dull depth thy white and glistening graces -- That fume of netted drops and subtle laces And listening statue-air, by men miscall'd? Shower o'er the blue, and sister of blown surf! Dream-daughter of the silences of turf! Couldest thou but waken and recall the Mind Lifts thee to image, then could I reveal Wherefore thou seem'st remember'd, and I feel In thee mine own dream risen and divined! IV Surely the hymn that charm'd thee from the grass Fashion'd me also, and the selfsame lyre Sounded accords that out of darkness pass And in thy beauty and my song conspire? The drum of streets, the fever of our homes, Clangors and murk metallurgy of gnomes, All are by thee unheard, who dost ignore The wisdom of the wise, in dead pasts now Dungeon'd, as never to ascend; but thou Whose being is for the light, and hath no care To know itself nor root from whence it sprang, Wouldst only murmur, in the heavenly air, "The sun, the sun!" if but thy spirit sang! V O might I show thee by the lute's devising Man, from thy soft turf, flown with light, arising! Him, too, doth hope, the boon without a pang, Summon with thrilling finger forth to hang -- To cast a heaving soul to the wave of wind, Sun-passion'd and earth-lodged. Ah, Tree serene Dilating in the glow of the unseen, We and our roofs and towers magnifical, Our Fame's heroic head against the sky, Our loves, and all That, with our briefness perfect, rise and die, -- Like thee must find Beauty in a besieging of the dark; Our glories on expectancy embark, And the height of our ecstasy, The touch of infinity, Is blind! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE YOUNG BIRCH by ROBERT FROST THE TURNING OF THE LEAVES by VERNON WATKINS TO A BIRCH TREE by KENNETH SLADE ALLING WHITE BIRCHES by MARY BRADLEY BRAMHALL ALMOND, WILD ALMOND by HERBERT TRENCH |
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