The Sky Watcher
The Sky Watcher
Original Text
The Poetical Works of Wilfred Campbell, ed. W. J. Sykes (London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1922]), p. 202. flem 0397 Fisher Library.
1Black rolls the phantom chimney-smoke
2Beneath the wintry moon;
3For miles on miles, by sound unbroke,
5And the night's icy swoon
6Sways earthward in great brimming wells
7Of luminous, frosty particles.
8Far up the roadway, drifted deep,
9Where frost-etched fences gleam;
10Beneath the sky's wan, shimmering sleep
11My solitary way I keep
12Across the world's white dream;
13The only living moving thing
14In all this mighty slumbering.
15Up in the eastern range of hill,
16The thin wood spectrally
17Stirs in its sleep and then is still
18(Like querulous age) at the wind's will.
19My shadow doggedly
20Follows my footsteps where I go,
21A grotesque giant on the snow.
22Out where the river's arms are wound,
24There comes to me as in a swound
25A far-off clear, thin, vibrant sound,--
26The distant hammering
27Of frost-elves as they come and go,
28Forging, in silver chains, his woe.
29I stand upon the hill's bleak crest
30And note the far night world:
31The mighty lake whose passionate breast,
32Manacled into arctic rest,
33In shrouded sleep is furled:
34The steely heavens whose wondrous host
35Wheel white from flaming coast to coast.
36Then down the night's dim luminous ways,
37Meseems they come once more,
38Those great star-watchers of old days
39The lonely, calm-ones, whose still gaze,
40On old-time, orient shore,
41Dreamed in the wheeling sons of light,
42The awful secrets of earth's night.
43They come, those lofty ones of old,
44And take me by the hand,
45And call me brother; ages rolled
46Are but a smoke-mist; kindred-souled,
47They lift me to their band;
48Like lights that from pale starbeams shine,
49Their clear eyes look with peace on mine.
50In language of no common kind
51These watchers speak to me;
52Their thoughts the depths of heaven find
54Of immortality
55To spend with them one holy hour,
56And know their love and grasp their power.
57And wrapt around with glad content,
58I learn with soul serene,
59Caught from the beauty that is blent
60In earth, the heaven's luminous tent,
61The frost-lit dreams between,
62And something holier out of sight,
63Glad visions of the infinite.
65The spectral moaning wood,
66With great peace brooding in my breast,
67I turn me toward the common rest
68Of earth's worn brotherhood;
69But as I pass, a sacred sign,
70Each lays his holy lips on mine:--
72Tips my hushed heart with fire;
73Till high in heaven I hear that throng
74Who march in mystic paths along,
77To earth-tuned ear inaudible.
Notes
4] ermine: (white weasel) fur. Back to Line
23] sedges: tufted marsh grasses. Back to Line
53] plummets: plumbs. Back to Line
64] sere: withered. Back to Line
71] chrism: oil used in religious rites. Back to Line
75] Great Pleiades: cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus named after the seven daughters of Atlas.
The Lyre: Lyra, a northern constellation containing Vega and representing the lyre of Orpheus. Back to Line
The Lyre: Lyra, a northern constellation containing Vega and representing the lyre of Orpheus. Back to Line
76] Te-Deum: opening of a hymn, "Te deum laudamus"(we praise thee God"). Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1890
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme