The Blue Symphony
I.
The darkness rolls upward.
The thick darkness carries with it
Rain and a ravel of cloud.
The sun comes forth upon earth.
Palely the dawn
Leaves me facing timidly
Old gardens sunken:
And in the gardens is water.
Sombre wreck — autumnal leaves;
Shadowy roofs
In the blue mist,
And a willow-branch that is broken.
Ο old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across
green trees!
Blue and cool:
Blue, tremulously,
Blow faint puffs of smoke
Across sombre pools.
The damp green smell of rotted wood;
And a heron that cries from out the water.
[ . . . ]
John Gould Fletcher's poem "The Blue Symphony" was published in the 1915 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read this poem in full in digitized versions of this publication, follow the links below:
The Modernist Journals Project