Mirage Of The Desert

Well, there's the brazier set by the temple door:
Blue flames run over the coals and flicker through.
There are cool spaces of sky between white clouds -
But what are flames and spaces but eyes of blue?

        *        *        *        *        *

And there's the harp on which great fingers play
Of gods who touch the wires, dreaming infinite things;
And there's a soul that wanders out when called
By a voice afar from the answering strings.

        *        *        *        *        *

And there's the wish of the deep fulfillment of tears,
Till the vision, the mad music are wept away.
One cannot have them and live, but if one die
It might be better than living - who can say?

        *        *        *        *        *

Why do we thirst for urns beyond urns who know
How sweet they are, yet bitter, not enough?
Eternity will quench your thirst, O soul -
But never the Desert's spectre, cup of love!

        *        *        *        *        *

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. Born in Kansas and raised in Illinois, Masters is best known for his collection of poems entitled "Spoon River Anthology" (1915), which is a series of epitaphs of residents of the fictional small town of Spoon River. His works reflect the everyday lives and frustrations of middle America. Masters also practiced law and wrote biographies for historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Edgar Lee Masters

The Grand River Marshes

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Question

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The End Of The Search

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The World-Saver

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Eyes wide for wisdom, calm for joy or pain,
Bright hair alloyed with silver, scarcely gold.
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The Vision

    Of that dear vale where you and I have lain
    Scanning the mysteries of life and death
    I dreamed, though how impassable the space
    Of time between the present and the past!
    This was the vision that possessed my mind;
    I thought the weird and gusty days of March
    Had eased themselves in melody and peace.
    Pale lights, swift shadows, lucent stalks, clear streams,
    Cool, rosy eves behind the penciled mesh
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Edgar Lee Masters

Mirage

Scene, the Arizona Desert, its most desolate part.



He closed his eyes, yet still could see
The leprous hills loom thirstily;
The mesquit glimmering; and the dust
Of alkali; and, rimmed with rust
Of emerald, a mineral pool
From which his horse had drunk him full.

Now he would drink how good to die
After the torture days gone by!
And so he rose, and through the sage
And sand groped, blind with thirst, and rage
At God, whose hand in hate had wrought
This trap of hell where he was caught.

Now what was this that held him fast?
Had he then reached relief at last,
After long years of heat and hate?
Surely there rose a marble gate,
A towered castle! and the sand
And sage had vanished from the land.

He entered where a ...

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The Monastery.

Beyond the wall the passion flower is blooming,
    Strange hints of life along the winds are blown;
Within, the cowled and silent men are kneeling
    Before an image on a cross of stone,
And on their lifted faces, wan as death,
I read this simple message of their faith:
            "The trail of flame is ashen,
                And pleasure's lees are gray,
            And gray the fruit of passion
                Whose ripeness is decay;
            The stress of life is rancor,
                A madness born to slay;
            They only miss its canker
                Who live with God and pray."

Beyond the wall lies Babylon, the mighty;
    Faint echoes of her songs come drifting by;
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Botanical Gardens

He follows me no more, I said, nor stands
Beside me. And I wake these later days
In an April mood, a wonder light and free.
The vision is gone, but gone the constant pain
Of constant thought. I see dawn from my hill,
And watch the lights which fingers from the waters
Twine from the sun or moon. Or look across
The waste of bays and marshes to the woods,
Under the prism colors of the air,
Held in a vacuum silence, where the clouds,
Like cyclop hoods are tossed against the sky
In terrible glory.

        And earth charmed I lie
Before the staring sphinx whose musing face
Is this Egyptian heaven, and whose eyes
Are separate clouds of gold, whose pedestal
Is earth, whose silken sheathed claws
No longer toy with me, even while I stroke them:
Since I h...

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In The Garden At The Dawn Hour

I arise in the silence of the dawn hour.
And softly steal out to the garden
Under the Favrile goblet of the dawning.
And a wind moves out of the south-land,
Like a film of silver,
And thrills with a far borne message
The flowers of the garden.
Poppies untie their scarlet hoods and wave them
To the south wind as he passes.
But the zinnias and calendulas,
In a mood of calm reserve, nod faintly
As the south wind whispers the secret
Of the dawn hour!

I stand in the silence of the dawn hour
In the garden,
As the star of morning fades.
Flying from scythes of air
The hare-bells, purples and golden glow
On the sand-hill back of the orchard
Race before the feet of the wind.
But clusters of oak-leaves over the yellow sand rim
Begin to flut...

Edgar Lee Masters