Poem by Robert Lee Frost

Iris by Night

One misty evening, one another's guide, 
We two were groping down a Malvern side 
The last wet fields and dripping hedges home. 
There came a moment of confusing lights, 
Such as according to belief in Rome 
Were seen of old at Memphis on the heights 
Before the fragments of a former sun 
Could concentrate anew and rise as one. 
Light was a paste of pigment in our eyes. 
And then there was a moon and then a scene 
So watery as to seem submarine; 
In which we two stood saturated, drowned. 
The clover-mingled rowan on the ground 
Had taken all the water it could as dew, 
And still the air was saturated too, 
Its airy pressure turned to water weight. 
Then a small rainbow like a trellis gate, 
A very small moon-made prismatic bow, 
Stood closely over us through which to go. 
And then we were vouchsafed a miracle 
That never yet to other two befell 
And I alone of us have lived to tell. 
A wonder! Bow and rainbow as it bent, 
Instead of moving with us as we went 
(To keep the pots of gold from being found), 
It lifted from its dewy pediment 
Its two mote-swimming many-colored ends 
And gathered them together in a ring. 
And we stood in it softly circled round 
From all division time or foe can bring 
In a relation of elected friends. 

1. The Strong Are Saying Nothing
2. Unharvested
3. On a Bird Singing in Its Sleep
4. I Could Give All to Time
5. Carpe Diem

Print

1666 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version