Seagirt, by woods encompassed, eyried within gates
That no man opens nay, the unuttered Who goes there?
Makes the benighted traveller tremble, hulf-aware
What flocking maleficences mount upon the fume
Of aromatic logs that secret fires consume –
The solitary enchantress broods and meditates,
Leaning out of the window of her turret-room.
The dusk falls. Weary of singing to herself, she waits.
And, hark, the pitiable chorus, brute on brute,
From cage and sty and manger breaking to salute
The hour of love remembered and the nuptial star.
Surely this evening sets the prison doors ajar,
Surely this evening . . . Bestial rage exacerbates
Within their horrible hides the sense of what they are.
Bear, lion, wolf and hog she hears with a cold smile
The stupid orchestration ebb and sink absorbed
Into the foliage, into the sea-ripple. A moon big-orbed
Illuminates the Tuscan water . . . “Who are these?
And whence the fugitive sail the even southerly breeze
Would spirit away beyond my luring perilous isle?
Who thinks to steal a passage thro* Circean seas?”
She loosed an air of magic melody (all the while
Far out the breath of cedar-logs went floating free).
But the long-waited lover that was not to be
Passed like a pilgrim proof against the sweet decoy,
Primed with Avernian revelation, in grave joy,
Smelling the air of Tiber, every moonlit mile
Nearing his promised walls, the second spring of Troy.
(John Swinnerton Phillimore)
More Poetry from John Swinnerton Phillimore:
John Swinnerton Phillimore Poems based on Topics: Joy & Excitement, Sense & Perception, Lions, Singing, Stupidity, LoveReaders Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Love Poems, Joy & Excitement Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Singing Poems, Stupidity Poems, Lions PoemsBased on Keywords: illuminates, pitiable, primed, southerly, circean, avernian, eyried, seagirt, orchestration, long-waited
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