Poems New and Old by John Freeman
page 49 of 309 (15%)
page 49 of 309 (15%)
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When youth sang in their bosoms like a bird....
Sweet that divine musician, Memory, Fingering her many-reeded melody. Then as he stared into the wasting glow And watched the fire faint in the whitening wood, Came starker shadows moving vast and slow, And echoes of wild strife and smell of blood, Twitching of slain men, cries of parting woe, Bruised bodies ghastly in the mountain flood; Burials and burnings, triumph with terrors blent, And widowed languors and night-long lament. Like seeds long buried, these dead memories Upthrust in their new green and spread to flower: An eager child against his father's knees Leaning, he had listened many an evening hour. Now these remote reworded histories Entangled with his own renewed their power, Breathing an antique virtue through his mind, As through dense yew boughs breathes the undying wind. Sighing, he rose up softly. On the wall A dark shape shambled aimless to and fro; Head bent, eyes inward-seeing, rugged, tall, Himself a shadow moved with musings slow Amid his cumbered past, and heard sweet call Of mother voice, and mother folk, and flow Of gentle and proud speech and tender laughter, Story and song, fault and forgiveness after; |
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