Read Online Collected Poems by William Alexander Percy - Free Book Online

know.
    O joy, the trancèd splendor of the air to shake
        And starward hurl like spray the errant snow!
    Ah, for the tyranny of furious wings, to wake
        Superb, this ecstasy of calm; to slake
    My passion-winnowed heart with tempests’ windy woe!
        I would to-night the storms were all awake!
AT PARTING
        And so we part!
    You with your vague, sweet smile,
    I with a breaking heart;
    You to your vague, sweet ways,
    I where the failures start.
        We lingered long!
    You for mere idleness,
    I for your mouth like song;
    You for the flattery,
    I for your beauty strong.
        Our lips’ last touch!
    Yours cold as mere consent,
    Mine colder were there such.
    And you will never know,
    And I have known too much.
    .   .   .   .
        Parting sublime!
    Already you’ve forgot,
    I will forget in time.
    You sigh without regret,
    And I have heart to rhyme.
BEFORE DAWN
    Breath of the dawn, breath of the dawn,
    Breathe on my heart of thine eagerness.
    Up from the sea, youthful with thee,
                                                      Be drawn
    For a spell and a healing to me
                                                      In my stress.
    With the shining of silver yet on thy feet,
    With the fleeing of stars that are flameless fleet,
    With the cool of the sea for the cool of thine eyes,
                                                      Arise
                                            And come to my need!
    From the grey of the unstarred eastern skies
                                                      Oh, speed!
    Up from the sea, up from the sea,
    Come with thine eagerness, girlishly;
    Sweep with the quiver and gleaming of thee
    Dark from my heart like dew from the lawn;
    With the cool of thy coming, half stars and half sun,
    Deliver my soul from the deeds that are done —
    Breath of the dawn, breath of the dawn,
                                                      Purify me.
LONGING
                   At last the sunset and the quietness;
                   The iron clutch of day loosened at last.
        Here where the sky is limpid loveliness
                             And depth on depth of peace, I may forget
    The fretful work-a-day and midgy round of things …
                             A smothered pain the long, long day.
    Nor does forgetting come with dark and nights of dream;
        But sweet with pain and filmèd tenderness
                   This hour of the pity of all things.…
    Grey as slow tears, the dusk blurs out the trees;
        The colors ebb beneath the western marge;
                             And homing come the birds —
                             Not singly come they, but,
                   With throated happiness, together.
        But we no more shall come together home,
                             Nor hear their twittering gusts,
        Nor watch the deep west come more deep
                             Till we behold the stars,
        So bright they must but now have wept.
                             Oh, for one hour to-night,
                   One little hour with you —
                             To touch your hand —
    To lean within the halo of your perfume —
        To watch, as those sweet many times,
                   Together, love, the young, white moon,
    Like some strange petal blown into our round of space
                   From out the cool abysms of the night,
    Where unknown blossoms