WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Low Tide on Grand Pré: A Book of Lyrics cover

Low Tide on Grand Pré: A Book of Lyrics

Chapter 36: WHITHER
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A compact lyric sequence set amid tidal marshes and meadowland, the poems use recurring images of low tide, wind, flowers, birds, and seasonal light to explore memory, longing, and the passage of time. Brief, sensory pieces alternate personal yearning and elegiac loss with attentive natural description, tying human feeling to the rhythms of the landscape. The tone ranges from wistful nostalgia to quiet acceptance, repeatedly returning to motifs of spring renewal and vanished presences. Together the lyrics form a tightly keyed meditation that blends elegy and buoyant natural observation into a cohesive reflection on recollection and renewal.

WHITHER

What shall we do, dearie,
Dreaming such dreams?
Will they come true, dearie?
Never, it seems.
Leave the wise thrush alone;
He knows such things.
How rich the silences
Fall when he sings!
When shall we come, dearie,
Into that land
Once was our home, dearie,
Perfect as planned?
When the wind calling us,
Some summer day,
Into the long ago
Lures us away.
Where shall we go, dearie,
Wandering thus?
Far to and fro, dearie,
Life leads for us.
Thou with the morrow's sun
Hillward and free,
I to the vast and hoar
Lone of the sea.

1886-1893.