I draw a-near you in your sleeping city,
Who, in mine ancient freedom,
Knew neither loss nor scant;
Who hunted even as he who hunted Edom,
And hungered not before
What bidding look love bore.
Now as one immigrant,
Now as one supplicant,
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city,
And, on the darkness falling,
My voice to you is heard
As lone upon the night as that far calling,
When, as his hidden word,
The lion, passion-stirred,
Looses against the sky
The languors of his cry.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city,
Where, with its lanterns burning,
It seems to veil apart
In misted light your sleep, toward which, with yearning,
Even as o’er the waste
The mourning plovers haste,
Leaps my impatient heart
To be to yours a dart.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city,
Moving as one imprisoned,
And yet as one in whom
The captured as the conqueror is visioned;
For in my hollow hand
Your feet will one day stand—
Yea, even to the tomb
Love webbed us in one loom!
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city,
All night toward you riding,
Who watched Orion lift
On high his sword, and marked the deep abiding
Of Arcturus in flame,
As though it brought to shame
The Galaxy’s pale drift,
The Twain-Star’s dark unthrift.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city,
All night toward you moving;
And as I rode there broke
The long, long cry of all my life’s behoving,
That rose against what cost
Of living hours—and lost—
Since there was none bespoke
My heart till you it woke.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city
As shipwreck draws toward its shore.
The night-wind faints upon the distant hills,
And house-made shadows ebon lie as though
There never dawn upon the silver sills
Of heaven waked with amber glow.
I draw a-near you in your sleeping city.
Now am I at your gate, my hand upon your door.
(Dame Mary Gilmore DBE)
More Poetry from Dame Mary Gilmore DBE:
Dame Mary Gilmore DBE Poems based on Topics: Night, Cry, Sleep, Heaven, Sadness, Silver, Boredom, Mourning, Cities, Haste, Liberty & Freedom- The Brucedale Scandal (Dame Mary Gilmore DBE Poems)
- The Bull (Dame Mary Gilmore DBE Poems)
- Casterton To Mount Gambier (Dame Mary Gilmore DBE Poems)
- The Wild Horses (Dame Mary Gilmore DBE Poems)
- Paddy Mannion's Song Of The Road (Dame Mary Gilmore DBE Poems)
- Mother And Son (Dame Mary Gilmore DBE Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Night Poems, Sadness Poems, Heaven Poems, Cry Poems, Sleep Poems, Cities Poems, Liberty & Freedom Poems, Silver Poems, Haste Poems, Boredom Poems, Lions PoemsBased on Keywords: misted, arcturus, sills, languors, unthrift, plovers, webbed, bespoke, edom, lost-, looses
- Of The Nature Of Things: Book IV - Part 04 - Some Vital Functions (Lucretius Poems)
- Book IV - Part 04 - Some Vital Functions (Lucretius Poems)
- Medulla Poetarum Romanorum - VOL. I. (Content - Courtship) (Henry Baker Poems)
- Army Of Northern Virginia (Stephen Vincent Benet Poems)
- Moslem Worship (John Pierpont Poems)