NORWAY’s a shadow: sullen the cliffs at midnight,
Stagnant the streams. Stare out beyond those fisted
Rocks; whose features stung by disease and hatred
Now rise from the mother sea, the moth-winged silence:
What calm, what certainty?
O, far, far and far
Rise the loved towers whose revolving hands
Twine on our sleeping hours. In autumn, in rain,
They glide along the square, those sensitive footsteps,
Each one in dream familiar as music, fading,
Forever rising and falling, dreading, desiring;
What comfort, quist?
Slight as the turtle’s music,
Crossing those still star-loving fields, now circling
The pinnacles, flooding the gates, compelling the walls,
Great cities crumble, ocean to ocean cries,
All falls; what constancy, what understanding,
Now that the fiery and familiar planets
Tonight once more lie amorous on our rivers,
Slope fearfully across our ancient torrents,
And sting the night beyond our ice-locked islands?
(Frederic Prokosch)
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Based on Topics: Night Poems, Dreams Poems, Cry Poems, Wisdom & Knowledge Poems, Mothers Poems, Silence Poems, Music Poems, Autumn PoemsBased on Keywords: dreading, norway, ice-locked, fisted, moth-winged