When I go on Mastermind, my specialist subject will be the life and poetry of Ernest Christopher Dowson. He's not the greatest poet who has ever lived, and some of his verses are not greatly elevated above the mediocre. But the very best of them shine as brightly as anything written in English.
I have a second edition of his poems, with an introduction by Arthur Symons and illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley.
That text in full:
Sleep! Cast thy canopy
Over this sleeper's brain,
Dim grow his memory,
When he wake again.
Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her winged flight
Back to her starry home.
Sleep! Yet thy days are mine;
Love's seal is over thee:
Far though my ways from thine,
Dim though thy memory.
Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her winged flight
Back to her starry home.
Kommentare