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larryhammerFor Poetry Monday:
The Wharf of Dreams, Edwin Markham
Strange wares are handled on the wharves of sleep:
Shadows of shadows pass, and many a light
Flashes a signal fire across the night;
Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen keep
Their way without a star upon the deep;
And from lost ships, homing with ghostly crews,
Come cries of incommunicable news,
While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white heap—
Budgets of dream-dust, merchandise of song,
Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient wrong,
Nepenthes gathered from a secret strand,
Fardels of heartache, burdens of old sins,
Luggage sent down from dim ancestral inns,
And bales of fantasy from No-Man’s Land.
From his first collection, The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems, published in 1899 when he was 47. When that turned into a bestseller, Markham (1852-1940) quit his job as an elementary school principal in California to become an editor, critic, and lecturer on poetry. The illustration (thanks, WikiMedia), from the fancy 1900 reissue, is by Howard Pyle and I am always down for any excuse to bring in Pyle. Seriously, he’s even more formative to me than Kipling.
(Meanwhile, a safe and happy Passover to all, but especially you first-born children!)
---L.
Subject quote from The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes.
The Wharf of Dreams, Edwin Markham
Strange wares are handled on the wharves of sleep:
Shadows of shadows pass, and many a light
Flashes a signal fire across the night;
Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen keep
Their way without a star upon the deep;
And from lost ships, homing with ghostly crews,
Come cries of incommunicable news,
While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white heap—
Budgets of dream-dust, merchandise of song,
Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient wrong,
Nepenthes gathered from a secret strand,
Fardels of heartache, burdens of old sins,
Luggage sent down from dim ancestral inns,
And bales of fantasy from No-Man’s Land.
From his first collection, The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems, published in 1899 when he was 47. When that turned into a bestseller, Markham (1852-1940) quit his job as an elementary school principal in California to become an editor, critic, and lecturer on poetry. The illustration (thanks, WikiMedia), from the fancy 1900 reissue, is by Howard Pyle and I am always down for any excuse to bring in Pyle. Seriously, he’s even more formative to me than Kipling.
(Meanwhile, a safe and happy Passover to all, but especially you first-born children!)
---L.
Subject quote from The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes.