Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems
    The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems
    The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems

    By Washington Allston

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems

    Read more from Washington Allston

    Related to The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Bard In The Woods

      Nov 30, 2020

      Bard In The Woods
      4 min read

    • Article

      Death’s Footsteps

      Nov 29, 2017

      Death’s Footsteps
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mountain Time

      Jan 1, 2021

      In the air you don’t know who you are or where My own self feels it is in wind being born These are currents a man made one eighth of smokeless fire fears but chooses A path south from Anchorage to a Mountain House Ungovern the northern land to pass

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Best Rain in Literature

      Apr 14, 2020

      The Best Rain in Literature
      11 min read

    • Article

      Meet Your New Favorite Poet

      Feb 20, 2019

      Meet Your New Favorite Poet
      6 min read

    • Article

      In Memory Of Derek Alton Walcott

      Mar 15, 2018

      1 Island traffic slows to a haltas screeching gulls reluctantto lift heavenwardcongregate like mourners in saltcrustedkelp, as the repellentnews spreads to colder shores: Sir Derek is no more.Bandwidths, clogged by streamingtributes, carry the pitcho

      2 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2019

      “My arm is so brown and so beautiful,” is a thought I haveas I’m about to turn off the lamp and go to sleep.I look at it a moment in the soft glow, and see it, briefly,as though it belonged to someone else. A reddishkind of brown, like a toasted almo

      7 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

      Jun 15, 2018

      And, after the explosion, made spheres sing,A pure expression of pure poetry,Like rising rain or a nation with noFlag—. Something that whispers as the airDoes just before the lightning comes. A pureExpression of the breaks in the blank lakesOn Neptun

      2 min read

    • Article

      Wonderful Things

      Sep 7, 2023

      SHORTLISTED IN WM’S TUTANKHAMUN POETRY COMPETITION WERE: Guy Carter, Petersfield, Hampshire; Christine Griffin, Hucclecote, Gloucester; Sarah Das Gupta, Mamuden, Essex; Tracey Kitchen, Daventry, Northamptonshire; Lesley Mason, Norwich, Norfolk; Julie

      5 min read

    • Article

      Gjertrud Schnackenberg

      Mar 9, 2021

      Poetry’s “impulse, like electricity, crossing the space, leaves its signature.”—W. S. Graham No wonder that a flash of sparksSpills out from what I touch—the LaserJet, Brimming with static shock,Suspends invisible electron-clouds Across the laser-pap

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Island (catullus 64)

      Mar 1, 2022

      Back then the evergreens tumbled downriverfrom the glaze-white runoff to the boot-stirred puddlesof amber young men who fulfilled our destiny,who clambered into ships, on horses, and in wagonspainting the newfound landscapes ours.Our calling was nobl

      9 min read

    • Article

      RHYME & REASON

      May 17, 2021

      RHYME & REASON
      1 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      May 1, 2019

      Like the way Galway Kinnell fell asleep in 1968 in Athens, Ohio,reading from a wadded-up new poem pulled from his pocket,started too late at night the night before—the occasion, exactly, the Ohio Poetry Circuit,calling for, often, two readings a day,

      2 min read

    • Article

      Earthlings

      Apr 9, 2021

      Earthlings
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Mar 9, 2022

      IN COMPETITION No 277 you were invited to write a poem called Morning Sounds. The entries were vivid: half domestic, half outdoor. Tim Lloyd observed that ‘A bin lorry approaching in reverse/Sounds like an asthmatic seal.’ Liz Piper remembered, durin

      2 min read

    • Article

      Hello Darkness My Old Friend

      Jun 17, 2020

      Hello Darkness My Old Friend
      4 min read

    • Article

      If I Had a Sense of Beauty

      Dec 5, 2017

      If I Had a Sense of Beauty
      14 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      The American linden sways nonplussed by the storm,a bounce here, a shimmy there, just shaking like musicleft over from the night’s end wafting into the avenues before sleep.I remember once walking down Clinton Street, and singingthat line returning,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Poem Of The Week: The North Wind By Anne Brontë

      May 8, 2023

      That wind is from the North, I know it well;No other breeze could have so wild a swell.Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,Then faintly dies,And softly sighs,And moans and murmurs mournfully.I know its language; thus is speaks to me – ‘I have

      3 min read

    • Article

      Stars Come Out

      Nov 3, 2022

      Stars Come Out
      5 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: September 2017

      Sep 11, 2017

      Isn’t that one of the purest goals of poetry—to justify our breaths? To recognize that we matter? The post Must-Read Poetry: September 2017 appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: October 2017

      Oct 3, 2017

      Poetry is malleable and moving; a form that will never tire of importance. The post Must-Read Poetry: October 2017 appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems by Eavan Boland

      May 1, 2020

      Four Poems by Eavan Boland
      3 min read

    • Article

      Until The Sea Closed Over Us And The Light Was Gone

      Jul 1, 2020

      —Dante, Canto XXVI But if the truth is dreamed of toward the morning—El Paso Although it was really last summer’s song,all this summer Despacito played on as slower then I turned myself to gazeupon Juarez. The summer everything hurts my eyes, a dozen

      6 min read

    • Article

      My Own Personal Herakles

      Sep 29, 2017

      My Own Personal Herakles
      20 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      In a hotel in a small town in Norfolk I am listening to someonethrowing glass bottles into a metal bin: toss-shatter, toss-shatter.There are no other sounds; it’s a quiet afternoonbut the one tossing them has a sense of rhythm and I havea sense that

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Epic Of Gilgamesh

      Jan 1, 2020

      My friends, who can reach heaven? The monster bellows like a river swollen with flood.Many are consumed in his fiery breath. My friends, who can reach heaven? Let us ask the mountain for a sign.Let us cut the spirits from the cedars. My friends, who

      3 min read

    Reviews for The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems - Washington Allston

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems

      by Washington Allston

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems

      Author: Washington Allston

      Release Date: February 12, 2004 [EBook #11059]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SYLPHS ***

      Produced by Distributed Proofreaders

      [

      Transcriber's Note:

      Footnotes have been numbered and moved to the end.]

      The Sylphs of the Seasons

      with Other Poems.

      By

      W. Allston.

      Contents.

      The Sylphs of the Seasons; a Poet's Dream

      The Two Pointers; a Tale

      Eccentricity

      The Paint King

      Myrtilla: addressed to a Lady, who lamented that she had never been in love

      To a Lady who spoke slightingly of Poets

      Sonnet on a Falling Group in the Last Judgment of Michael Angelo, in the Cappella Sistina

      Sonnet on the Group of the Three Angels before the Tent of Abraham, by Raffaelle, in the Vatican

      Sonnet, on seeing the Picture of Æolus, by Peligrino Tibaldi, in the Institute at Bologna

      Sonnet on Rembrant; occasioned by his Picture of Jacob's Dream

      Sonnet on the Luxembourg Gallery

      Sonnet to my venerable Friend, the President of the Royal Academy

      The Mad Lover at the Grave of his Mistress

      First Love: a Ballad

      The Complaint

      Will, the Maniac: a Ballad

      The Sylphs of the Seasons;

      A Poet's Dream.

      Prefatory Note to The Sylphs of the Seasons.

      As it may be objected to the following Poem, that some of the images there introduced are not wholly peculiar to the Season described, the Author begs leave to state, that, both in their selection and disposition, he was guided by that, which, in his limited experience, was found to be the Season of their greatest impression: and, though he has not always felt the necessity of pointing out the collateral causes by which the effect was increased, he yet flatters himself that, in general, they are sufficiently implied either by what follows or precedes them. Thus, for instance, the running brook, though by no means peculiar, is appropriated to Spring; as affording by its motion and seeming exultation one of the most lively images of that spirit of renovation which animates the earth after its temporary suspension during the Winter. By the same rule, is assigned to Summer the placid lake, &c. not because that image is never seen, or enjoyed, at any other season; but on account of its affecting us more in Summer, than either in the Spring, or in Autumn; the indolence and languor generally then experienced disposing us to dwell with particular delight on such an object of repose, not to mention the grateful idea of coolness derived from a knowledge of its temperature. Thus also the evening cloud, exhibiting a fleeting representation of successive objects, is, perhaps, justly appropriated to Autumn, as in that Season the general decay of inanimate nature leads the mind to turn upon itself, and without effort to apply almost every image of sense or vision of the imagination,* to its own transitory state.

      If the above be admitted, it is needless to add more; if it be not, it would be useless.

      The Sylphs of the Seasons.

      Long has it been my fate to hear

      The slave of Mammon, with a sneer,

        My indolence reprove.

      Ah, little knows he of the care,

      The toil, the hardship that I bear,

      While lolling in my elbow-chair,

        And seeming scarce to move:

      For, mounted on the Poet's steed,

      I there my ceaseless journey speed

        O'er mountain, wood, and stream:

      And oft within a little day

      'Mid comets fierce 'tis mine to stray,

      And wander o'er the Milky-way

        To catch a Poet's dream.

      But would the Man of Lucre know

      What riches from my labours flow?--

        A DREAM is my reply.

      And who for wealth has ever pin'd,

      That had a World within his mind,

      Where every treasure he may find,

        And joys that never die!

      One night, my task diurnal done,

      (For I had travell'd with the Sun

        O'er burning sands, o'er snows)

      Fatigued, I sought the couch of rest;

      My wonted pray'r to Heaven address'd;

      But scarce had I my pillow press'd

        When thus a vision rose.

      Methought within a desert cave,

      Cold, dark, and solemn as the grave,

       I suddenly awoke.

      It seem'd of sable Night the cell,

      Where, save when from the ceiling fell

      An oozing drop, her silent spell

       No sound had ever broke.

      There motionless I stood alone,

      Like some strange monument of stone

        Upon a barren wild;

      Or like, (so solid and profound

      The darkness seem'd that wall'd me round)

      A man that's buried under ground,

        Where pyramids are pil'd.

      Thus fix'd, a dreadful hour I past,

      And now I heard, as from a blast,

        A voice pronounce my name:

      Nor long upon my ear it dwelt,

      When round me 'gan the air to melt.

      And motion once again I felt

        Quick circling o'er my frame.

      Again it call'd; and then a ray,

      That seem'd a gushing fount of day,

        Across the cavern stream'd.

      Half struck with terror and delight,

      I hail'd the little blessed light,

      And follow'd 'till my aching sight

        An orb of darkness seem'd.

      Nor long I felt the blinding pain;

      For soon upon a mountain plain

        I gaz'd with wonder new.

      There high a castle rear'd its head;

      And far below a region spread,

      Where every Season

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1