CRIMSON poppies, bright as the crimson morning, Bright as torches lit by the fires of sunset, When I see you swinging like radiant censers Under the wind's touch -- Then my spirit, swift as the wind, is wafted O'er the sea-foam, over the waves that welter, Till I look again on the plain Esdraelon, Look on the poppies Swaying, surge on surge, to the mountain bases Where, with walls of white and with domes that dazzle, Nazareth nestles, girt by its silvery olives, Sunk as in slumber. Yet I know the song of the desert minstrel, Haunting, weird, is heard in the narrow highways, And around the well of the Virgin Mary Gather the maidens, Low-voiced, slender, jars upon head and shoulder; -- How it all comes back with the flame of poppies Softly swaying, swinging like radiant censers Under the wind's touch! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A PASSER-BY by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES A ST. HELENA LULLABY by RUDYARD KIPLING IMMORTALITY by GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL AT BETHLEHEM: 1. THE CHILD by JOHN BANISTER TABB HUMAN IGNORANCE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH BE STILL, MY SOUL by ARCHILOCHUS |