This mezzo-tint of mist and smoke blue air, These gray blue waters, gray black cherry trees Are Whistler's manner to the brushtip. . . these And shore-lamps lit against the nearing night, That lie in little broken lanes of light. He would have washed these wistful colors in With brooding hand and spirit edged and keen -- His vision and the subtle hour akin -- Seeing beyond the symbol the unseen, The overtones of tint, the underglow Which lends that nameless gleam of lustre-ware To slow-rippled river there. Blue-silver lights! He would have loved them so! And that black bridge, long-spanned and low, With the frail mist fringing the farther end. What art he had for bridges -- skill to blend Their arches into his backgrounds of blue air. Swiftly he would have caught this nocturne mood, This mood of mist and sky, And held it in few strokes and fewer tones, Set there Below the blurred-in trees his @3Butterfly@1 And called it "Silver and Blue." . . . Bridge-Builder of dreams, I dedicate This river dusk to you. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GOLDWING MOTH by CARL SANDBURG THE OLD SHIPS by JAMES ELROY FLECKER DRIVING HOME THE COWS by KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD THE LAST SUPPER by RAINER MARIA RILKE THE JACOBITE ON TOWER HILL by GEORGE WALTER THORNBURY BALLADE OF THE FOREST HAUNTERS by THEODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE |