Symbols
Beautiful words, like butterflies, blow by,
With what swift colours on their fragile wings! –
Some that are less articulate than a sigh,
Some that were names of ancient, lovely things.
What delicate careerings of escape,
When they would pass beyond the baffled reach,
To leave a haunting shadow and a shape, –
Eluding still the careful traps of speech.
And I who watch and listen, lie in wait,
Seeing the cloudy cavalcades blow past, –
Happy if some bright vagrant, soon or late,
May venture near the snares of sound, at last –
Most fortunate captor if, from time to time,
One may be taken, trembling, in a rhyme.
~~
David Morton (1886-1957)
from Ships in Harbor, and other poems, 1921.
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
David Morton biography
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