NOW the frosty stars are gone:
I have watched them one by one,
Fading on the shores of Dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through this vestibule of Day,
While the wolves that late did howl
Slink to dens and converts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
Who, last night, with mocking croon,
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon,
And with eyes that blankly glared
On my direful torment stared.
The lark is flickering in the light;
Still he nightingale doth sing;-
All the isle, alive with Spring,
Lies, a jewel of delight,
On the blue sea’s heaving breast;
Not a breath from out the west,
But some balmy smell doth bring
From the sprouting myrtle buds,
Or from meadowy vales that lie
Like a green inverted sky,
Which the yellow cowslip stars,
And the bloomy almond woods,
Cloud-like, cross with roseate bars.
All is life that I can spy,
To the farthest sea and sky,
And my own the only pain
Within this ring of Tyrrhene main.
In the gnarled and cloven Pine
Where that hell-born hag did chain me,
All this orb of cloudless shine,
All this youth in Nature’s veins
Tingling with the season’s wine,
With a sharper torment pain me.
Pansies in soft April rains
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap
Drawn from Earth’s prolific lap;
But the sluggish blood she brings
To the tough Pine’s hundred rings,
Closer locks their cruel hold,
Closer draws the scaly bark
Round the crevice, damp and cold,
Where my useless, damp and cold,
Sealing me in iron dark.
By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty essence wronged;
Finer senses, that belonged
To my freedom, chafe at Fate,
Till the happier elves I hate,
Who in moonlight dances turn
Underneath the palmy fern,
Or in light and twinkling bands
Follow on with link
(James Bayard Taylor)
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Based on Topics: Night Poems, Light Poems, Nature Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Fate & Destiny Poems, Spring Poems, Lies & Deceit Poems, Wine Poems, Liberty & Freedom Poems, Hatred PoemsBased on Keywords: hell-born, cloud-like, blankly, meadowy, tyrrhene