I <br /> <br />LEAGUERED in fire <br />The wild black promontories of the coast extend <br />Their savage silhouettes; <br />The sun in universal carnage sets, <br />And, halting higher, <br />The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, <br />Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, <br />That, balked, yet stands at bay. <br />Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day <br />In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, <br />A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions shine <br />Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, <br />And in her lifted hand swings high o'erhead, <br />Above the waste of war, <br />The silver torch-light of the evening star <br />Wherewith to search the faces of the dead. <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />Lagooned in gold, <br />Seem not those jetty promontories rather <br />The outposts of some ancient land forlorn, <br />Uncomforted of morn, <br />Where old oblivions gather, <br />The melancholy, unconsoling fold <br />Of all things that go utterly to death <br />And mix no more, no more <br />With life's perpetually awakening breath? <br />Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore, <br />Over such sailless seas, <br />To walk with hope's slain importunities <br />In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not <br />All things be there forgot, <br />Save the sea's golden barrier and the black <br />Closecrouching promontories? <br />Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories, <br />Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade, <br />A spectre self-destroyed, <br />So purged of all remembrance and sucked back <br />Into the primal void, <br />That should we on that shore phantasmal meet <br />I should not know the coming of your feet?<br /><br />Edith Wharton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-autumn-sunset/
