I AM a barbarian out of the sunless forest Where the trees continually growing spread a murmuring shadow of thunder Over the plains where the sunlight blooms in the golden grass. And I dream I shall see the sunlight slowly, inexorably eaten By those dark, slow-spreading impis that rise up out of the ground, Their bushy headdresses shaking as they crowd to the edge of the plains. Lovely are those bare hills where the slender-legged antelopes gather, Their horns against the horizon in the clear grey light of evening: And I stand at the edge of the forest and I see the red disc sinking, And a million blooms hang drooping and their colours fade from the fields! And when earth and sky are ashen, I turn back into the forest, Among the huge trunks walking, a Shadow lost by the sun; I am dark in the darkness, solitary, onward moving, Until I silently enter a tiny circle of firelight. There I sit with the Shadows that live in the gloom of the forest, Eating, gesticulating. Soon we lie down in deep silence But rolled in my blanket of darkness; I hold a bright patch of the sky with those hills and earth's delicate antlers. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FACADE: 7. MADAME MOUSE TROTS by EDITH SITWELL A SOLILOQUY; OCCASIONED BY THE CHIRPING OF A GRASSHOPPER by WALTER HARTE AFTER SUNSET by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM BEAUTY by WILLIMINA L. ARMSTRONG ECLOGUE ON ELIZABETH BELSHAM by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: THE SLIGHT AND DEGENERATE NATURE OF MAN by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |