Now the grey mist comes creeping up
From the waste ocean-s weedy strand
And fills the valley, as a cup
If filled of evil drink in a wizard-s hand;
And the trees fade out of sight,
Like dreary ghosts unhealthily,
Into the damp, pale night,
Till you almost think that a clearer eye could see
Some shape come up of a demon seeking apart
His meat, as Grendel sought in Harte
The thanes that sat by the wintry log-
Grendel or the shadowy mass
Of Balor, or the man with the face of clay,
The grey, grey walker who used to pass
Over the rock-arch nightly to his prey.
But here at the dumb, slow stream where the willows hang,
With never a wind to blow the mists apart,
Bitter and bitter it is for thee. O my heart,
Looking upon this land, where poets sang,
Thus with the dreary shroud
Unwholesome, over it spread,
And knowing the fog and the cloud
In her people-s heart and head
Even as it lies for ever upon her coasts
Making them dim and dreamy lest her sons should ever arise
And remember all their boasts;
For I know that the colourless skies
And the blurred horizons breed
Lonely desire and many words and brooding and never a deed.
Irish Nocturne
Clive Staples Lewis
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Poem topics: cloud, evil, fog, lonely, night, ocean, people, remember, wind, desire, head, face, valley, shape, drink, demon, waste, slow, spread, stream, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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