NEAR my bed, there, hangs the picture jewels could not buy from me: 'T is a Siren, a brown Siren, in her sea-weed drapery, Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a sea. In the east, the rose of morning seems as if 't would blossom soon, But it never, never blossoms, in this picture; and the moon Never ceases to be crescent, and the June is always June. And the heavy-branched banana never yields its creamy fruit; In the citron-trees are nightingales forever stricken mute; And the Siren sits, her fingers on the pulses of the lute. In the hushes of the midnight, when the heliotropes grow strong With the dampness, I hear music -- hear a quiet, plaintive song -- A most sad, melodious utterance, as of some immortal wrong -- Like the pleading, oft repeated, of a Soul that pleads in vain, Of a damned Soul repentant, that would fain be pure again!-- And I lie awake and listen to the music of her pain. And whence comes this mournful music? -- whence, unless it chance to be From the Siren, the brown Siren, in her sea-weed drapery, Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a sea. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA by GEORGE BERKELEY REMEMBERING NAT TURNER by STERLING ALLEN BROWN LUKE HAVERGAL by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON A MOTHER'S PICTURE by EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN THE SONG OF THE ILL-BELOVED; TO PAUL LEAUTARD by GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE |