Spring
O hallow tulip, flower of the spring,
I cannot wait until the sun may bring,
From out the earth your amethystine grace,
Your smell, your pinkish shade, your tender face.
For of your musky scent does bringeth glee,
So come! My lovely spring, come gladden me!
The Sparrow
(An Imperfect Poem)
O, as the leaves of winter fall and die,
And mingle with the softest, lightest snow,
The trees thus naked, bare and cold do lie,
Inside the weakened sun’s December glow.
A forest silent, animals burrow,
The scenery thus azure, deep and dark;
From out the sea of oak does fly a sparrow,
From out the silent wood, the sparrow lark.
O as this sparrow lark does fly alone!
A solitary spark across the sky,
Across the em’rald sea the sparrow flown,
A spot of brown amid the bluest dye.
Tis’ something mystic of this single bird,
As it does fly inside the winter air,
For thus the forest life its presence stirred,
From out the frozen ground came all her fair.
The creatures all thus ran throughout the trees,
To follow that sole sparrow in the sky,
Not hindered by the arctic winter breeze,
They yearned to join that sparrow and thus fly.
Though bound to earth, they all did wish to bathe,
Inside the crimson rays from out the sun,
Thus to the animals the sparrow saith,
“My friends though fly you can’t, must now you run!”
Thus run did all the deer, and all the game,
The packs of wolves, and wild dogs arrayed,
The creatures of the wood did run so tame,
Towards the sparrow in the sky, displayed.
They ran and ran into the late of night,
Beyond into the snowy laden fields,
The countryside there basking in the light,
From out a thousand stars the sky did yield.
Beyond the winter solstice did they run,
In chase of that lone sparrow in the sky,
The friends of fowl had only yet begun,
To run forever on until they die.
The animals the sparrow did bewitch,
To follow it until the end of days,
And still they run throughout all field and ditch,
The wild ones forever in its sway.
O, as the leaves of winter fall and die,
And mingle with the softest, lightest snow,
The trees thus naked, bare and cold do lie,
Inside the weakened sun’s December glow.
A forest silent, all the ground lay fallow,
The scenery thus azure, deep and dark;
A sea of oak so empty and so hallow,
And far into the vast, the sparrow lark.
Corey J. Browning is a poet from Brooklyn, New York who finds inspiration in the poetry of classical writers such as Dante Alighieri, Edmund Spenser, John Milton, and John Keats. He has written previously in historical journals such as “The Casebook Examiner” and “Ripperologist.” Corey is currently working towards a degree in History at the City University of New York.
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Very Bryantesque, but, for a long poem, appealing. I especially liked the image of the land animals running after the aerial sparrow. Nice work with the tulip poem as well: polished and petite.
Hello Reid, thank you very much! I had to research a bit what you meant regarding ‘The Sparrow’ being “bryantesque”, did you mean showing a quality similar to the poet William Cullen Bryant? Up until now I had never read his poetry.
Hey Corey,
On a surface-level, “The Sparrow” reminded me of the famous Bryant poem concerning another solitary bird: i.e. the ambiguous waterfowl of “To a Waterfowl;” and the poet, you, musing on this aerial creature’s singular and celestial flight. You should also read “Thanatopsis,” a poem Bryant wrote when he was very young and which affirmed his reputation as one of the potential great poets of the nineteenth century. I will attach “To a Waterfowl.”
Cheers,
RM
To a Waterfowl
Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sing
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast–
The desert and illimitable air–
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
Wow, beautiful work. You have me inspired! Keep it up.