O NOON of life! Delightful garden land! Fair summer station! O, restless bliss in watchful expectation:— For friends I wait—both day and night attend. Where are ye, friends? Oh, come! The time's at hand! Doth not for you today the glacier hoar, Bedeck with roses? The brooklet seeks you; longing for you poses The breeze-tossed cloud still loftier than of yore— To spy you out—where highest eagles soar. Aloft from you my board is bounteous spread:— Whose habitation So nigh both gulf and starry constellation? What sovereign e'er o'er wider realms did tread? My fragrant honey—whom hath it e'er fed? Ye @3come,@1 my friends! but ah, how @3I@1 belie Your expectation? Ye stop, amazed!—better were indignation! I'm—he no more? Changed gait and face and eye, No more to you the @3signs@1 of friend imply? Another now, with my first self compared, Aye self-outgrowing? A wrestler, also, oft self-overthrowing? Too oft 'gainst his own force with war declared, By his own victory wounded and impaired? I sought the place where blew the sharpest air; There chose my dwelling, Where no one dwelt—those ice-bear zones repelling; Unlearned man and God and curse and prayer, Became a ghost haunting the glaciers bare? —Ye friends of old, whose pallid faces peep, With love and terror! Forgive me! Go!—To lodge here—were an error. Amidst such realms of ice, and rocks so steep, One must a hunter be,—like chamois leap. I'm now a hunter @3vicious!@1—See how tight My bow is straining; The strongest only such a force attaining! But ah! Dangerous is now that arrow's might More than @3all@1 arrows! Hence, be safe in flight! ... Ye go? O heart, enough thou hadst to bear— Thy hope remaining: Thy doors keep open now, @3new@1 friends attaining! Let go the old, nor for past memories care! Once young—thou yet hast better youth to spare! What ever bound us, common hope's bless'd bond— Who reads signs pallid, Which love once wrote thereon in symbols hallowed? To parchment I compare it, which the hand @3Unwilling@1 grasps,—it soils and makes a brand. Thus friends no more; they are—what name have they? Friends' apparition! They haunt my door and heart for recognition; They look at me, "Friends we @3were@1 once?" They say: O withered word, like fragrant rose decay! O youthful longing, liable to stray! Friends @3I@1 desired, Whom changed I deemed, and like to me inspired,— Advancing @3age@1 hath banished them away:— Who change can only 'mong my kindred stay. O noon of life! A second youthful land! Fair summer station! O, restless bliss in watchful expectation:— For friends I wait—both day and night attend,— For the @3new@1 friends! Oh, come! The time's at hand! @3This@1 song is o'er,—the longings' sweet refrain Ceased with good reason: By charmer's spell, the friend at the right season, The noonday friend—but why should I explain— It was at noon when one was changed to twain. ... We celebrate, now sure of conquering might, The grandest lustra:— The guest of guests arrived, friend @3Zarathustra!@1 The world now smiles, rent is the veil of night— The marriage of the darkness and the light. ... | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG:SO WHY DOES THIS DEAD CARNATION by HAYDEN CARRUTH ARMAGEDDON by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON CREDO by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON ISOLATION by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON SEPULCHRE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON TO MY CLASS: ON CERTAIN FRUITS AND FLOWERS SENT ... SICKNESS by SIDNEY LANIER |