The Nightingale Near the House
Here is the soundless cypress on the lawn
It listens, listens, Taller trees beyond
Listen. The moon at the unruffled pond
Stares. And you sing, you sing.
That star enchanted song falls through the air
From lawn to lawn down terraces of sound
Darts in white arrows on the shadowed ground
While all the night you sing.
My dreams are flowers to which you are the bee
As all night long I listen, and my brain
Receives your song, then loses it again
In the moonlight on the lawn.
Now is your voice a marble high and white
Then like a mist on fields of paradise
Now is a raging fire, then it is like ice
Then breaks and it is dawn.
Commentary
Every now and then, I read a poem where all I can think, at the end, is that the poet really should have quit while he was ahead. Today’s poem sadly falls into that category - the first verse is absolutely beautiful, the second merely okay, and the final two are (despite some nice images) just plain weak.
So why am I even bothering to run this? Well, as I have observed before, a good enough segment - indeed, sometimes even a good enough line - can be worth reading an otherwise mediocre poem for, and I think the first verse of today’s poem definitely qualifies. Indeed, it would have been an excellent poem in its own right - consider:
Here is the soundless cypress on the lawn
It listens, listens, Taller trees beyond
Listen. The moon at the unruffled pond
Stares. And you sing, you sing.
Lovely, isn’t it? Well, consider that your poem for today, and feel free to ignore the rest. I certainly did.
— Martin
Links
Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Monro
We’ve run a couple of Monro’s poems before, including the delightful “Overheard on a Salmarsh”:
Poem #594