English poem
Poem 76 (Their words are not as ours.…)
by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907)
Their words are not as ours. If man might go Among the waves of Ocean when they break And hear them—hear the language of the Snow Falling on torrents—he might also know The tongue they speak.
Pure are they as the light; they never sinned, But when the rays of the eternal fire Kindle the West, their tresses they unbind And fling their girdles to the Western wind, Swept by desire.
Lo, maidens to the maidens then are born, Strong children of the maidens and the breeze, Dreams are not—in the glory of the morn, Seen through the gates of ivory and horn— More fair than these.
And none may find their dwelling. In the shade Primeval of the forest oaks they hide. One of our race, lost in an awful glade, Saw with his human eyes a wild white maid, And gazing, died.
More by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
- Poem 67 (Therefore do her dull leaves glimmer…)
- Poem 7 (For as the sun steals from…)
- Poem 70 (When Mary thro' the garden went…)
- Poem 74 (Come weal or woe, to the…)
- Poem 77 (Thou that shadowest ever a bounded…)
- Poem 81 (They that fear nothing else, of…)
- Poem 85 (The light was dark without thee…)
- Poem 86 (In the East the dawn grows…)