Dream-Songs for the Belovèd

Chapter 2: TO MY MOTHER

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

An intimate collection of lyrical poems that weave dreamlike imagery, devotional longing, and quiet philosophical reflection. The speaker addresses a beloved presence and considers love as both gift and transformative occupation, often finding silence and music in place of conventional expression. Imagery moves between night, pastoral meadows, classical myth, and fogbound streets to explore memory, beauty, loss, and the creative impulse. Forms vary from short lyrics and sonnet-like pieces to longer idylls and mythic narratives, shifting voice between intimate address and contemplative reportage. The overall mood balances tenderness and austerity, repeatedly returning to themes of spiritual vision and the limits of language.

TO MY MOTHER

Unuttered songs fly round my thoughts like birds,

And aerially, above an earth of words,

Imagined music on my spirit showers

From azure-feathered throat and golden tongue.

Most dear, of the many songs I cannot sing

Yours is the bird of heavenliest wing

Whose sunward flight beyond my following towers

And leaves me with an impotent harp unstrung.

And yet the shadow of my song for you

Falls on my heart forever as a dew,

Or the dim-breathing soul of evening flowers

That love the delicate light of stars still young.

These lesser songs that all who listen may hear

Shall we call yours for a day, most dear, most dear?—

Knowing there is one other, only ours,

For ever singing, and for ever unsung.

✶