by Eliot · Cluster: Transience · Decay · Carpe Diem
Abstract
Dawn lyric of fresh and withered flowers turning toward the light; fragrance of bloom and decay together — a vanitas/transience image at daybreak.
Connections
Topoi: Vanitas Motifs: Flowers, Decay, Dawn Themes & Concepts: Transience Forms & Genres: Lyric
Testo integrale / Full text
Before Morning
While all the East was weaving red with gray,
The flowers at the window turned toward dawn,
Petal on petal, waiting for the day,
Fresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.
This morning’s flowers and flowers of yesterday
Their fragrance drifts across the room at dawn,
Fragrance of bloom and fragrance of decay,
Fresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.
Circe’s Palace
Around her fountain which flows
With the voice of men in pain‚
Are flowers that no man knows.
Their petals are fanged and red
With hideous streak and stain;
They sprang from the limbs of the dead. —
We shall not come here again.
Panthers rise from their lairs
In the forest which thickens below,
Along the garden stairs
The sluggish python lies;
The peacocks walk, stately and slow,
And they look at us with the eyes
Of men whom we knew long ago.