The mindseye is flitting like a moth among summer firs the palewhite slowfast moth that threads the burning pillars of the hidden sun and fares tricklingly over the ferny firesplashes of the forest bed among whorls of misty gold rising in aureoles under the branches There the veeries whistle the variations of a curious doubling echoing note and the ovenbirds shriek surprising hallelujahs in unseen transepts There the filigree ferns the moccasin flowers the great trees and the palewhite moth are a lucency in the semidusk of causeless light until through a gap the source burns burns for a dazzling instant and then turns blank. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE KINGFISHER by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN: THE SECOND DAY: LADY WENTWORTH by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY by WILLIAM AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG THE HORSE THIEF by WILLIAM ROSE BENET HEART'S EASE by MATHILDE BLIND THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 114. A LATER DEDICATION by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT A PARAPHRASE ON THE PRAYER, USED IN THE CHURCH LITURGY by JOHN BYROM |