Nomenclature

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Title:     Nomenclature
Author: David Morton [More Titles by Morton]

There is a magic in the shining name,
A legacy that beauty yields to speech,
Something more quick and subtle than her fame,--
Who else had blown beyond our stunted reach.
By what occult divining does the will
Fashion the cryptic word whose sound and sense
Evoke the trembling image, lovely still,
Of something lost but for this recompense?

There have been ships whose names were music's own;
But speak them--and the lifted prows go by!
Women who stir as from the sculptor's stone,
For syllables still tender as a sigh ...
And banished Aprils that we saw and heard,
Return their lights and colours ... in a word.

[The end]
David Morton's poem: Nomenclature

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