Prospero

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Title:     Prospero
Author: William Johnson Cory [More Titles by Cory]

Farewell, my airy pursuivants, farewell.
We part to-day, and I resign
This lonely island, and this rocky cell,
And all that hath been mine.

"Ah, whither go we? Why not follow thee,
Our human king, across the wave,
The man that rescued us from rifted tree,
Bleak marsh, and howling cave."

Oh no. The wand I wielded then is buried,
Broken, and buried in the sand.
Oh no. By mortal hands I must be ferried
Unto the Tuscan strand.

You came to cheer my exile, and to lift
The weight of silence off my lips:
With you I ruled the clouds, and ocean-drift,
Meteors, and wandering ships.

Your fancies glinting on my central mind
Fell off in beams of many hues,
Soft lambent light. Yet, severed from mankind,
Not light, but heat, I lose.

I go, before my heart be chilled. Behold,
The bark that bears me waves her flag,
To chide my loitering. Back to your mountain-hold,
And flee the tyrant hag.

Away. I hear your little voices sinking
Into the wood-notes of the breeze:
I hear you say: "Enough, enough of thinking;
Love lies beyond the seas."

[The end]
William Johnson Cory's poem: Prospero

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