The Nympholept

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

There was a boy — not above childish fears —

With steps that faltered now and straining ears,

Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless still,

Who one bright dawn, when each remotest hill

Stood sharp and clear in Heaven’s unclouded blue

And all Earth shimmered with fresh-beaded dew,

Risen in the first beams of the gladdening sun,

Walked up into the mountains. One by one

Each towering trunk beneath his sturdy stride

Fell back, and ever wider and more wide

The boundless prospect opened. Long he strayed,

From dawn till the last trace of slanting shade

Had vanished from the canyons, and, dismayed

At that far length to which his path had led,

He paused — at such a height where overhead

The clouds hung close, the air came thin and chill,

And all was hushed and calm and very still,

Save, from abysmal gorges, where the sound

Of tumbling waters rose, and all around

The pines, by those keen upper currents blown,

Muttered in multitudinous monotone.

Here, with the wind in lovely locks laid bare,

With arms oft raised in dedicative prayer,

Lost in mute rapture and adoring wonder,

He stood, till the far noise of noontide thunder,

Rolled down upon the muffled harmonies

Of wind and waterfall and whispering trees,

Made loneliness more lone. Some Panic fear

Would seize him then, as they who seemed to hear

In Tracian valleys or Thessalian woods

The god’s hallooing wake the leafy solitudes;

I think it was the same: some piercing sense

Of Deity’s pervasive immanence,

The Life that visible Nature doth indwell

Grown great and near and all but palpable . . .

He might not linger, but with winged strides

Like one pursued, fled down the mountain-sides —

Down the long ridge that edged the steep ravine,

By glade and flowery lawn and upland green,

And never paused nor felt assured again

But where the grassy foothills opened. Then,

While shadows lengthened on the plain below

And the sun vanished and the sunset-glow

Looked back upon the world with fervid eye

Through the barred windows of the western sky,

Homeward he fared, while many a look behind

Showed the receding ranges dim-outlined,

Highland and hollow where his path had lain,

Veiled in deep purple of the mountain rain.

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• The Campera, the Foreigner y el Novio by Marjorie Kanter by Poetry In English
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• The Aegean by Maria Luisa Spaziani by Poetry In English
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• The Copper Beech by Marie Howe by Poetry In English
• Synchronicity by Marina Cecilia Kohon by Poetry In English
• Subjective Genocide by Marie Starr by Poetry In English
• Subject to Change by Marilyn L. Taylor by Poetry In English
• Spenser’s Ireland by Marianne Moore by Poetry In English
• Song by Margaret Widdemer by Poetry In English
• Silence by Marianne Moore by Poetry In English
• Scars on Paper by Marilyn Hacker by Poetry In English
• Rosemary by Marianne Moore by Poetry In English
• Release by Marie Starr by Poetry In English
• Reading Runes by Marina Cecilia Kohon by Poetry In English
• Portrait in Black and White by Marjorie Kanter by Poetry In English
• Poetry by Marianne Moore by Poetry In English
• Peter by Marianne Moore by Poetry In English
• Passion by Sera Jacob by Poetry In English
• Paragraphs from a Day-Book by Marilyn Hacker by Poetry In English

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