Delmore Schwartz Poems

Back to Poems Page

This is a poem I wrote before I died and was reborn:
- After the years of the apples ripening and the eagles
soaring,
After the festival here the small flowers gleamed like the
first stars,
And the horses cantered and romped away like the
experience of skill; mastered and serene
Power, grasped and governed by reins, lightly held by
knowing hands.

The horses had cantered away, far enough away
So that I saw the horses' heads farther and farther away
And saw that they had reached the black horizon on the
dusk of day
And were or seemed black thunderheads, massy and
ominous waves in the doomed sky:
And it was then, for the first time, then that I said as I
must always say
All through living death of night:
It is always darkness before delight!
The long night is always the beginning of the vivid blossom of day.

Email This Poem to a Friend

Previous Poem | Next Poem

View Delmore Schwartz:  Poems | Quotes | Biography | Books

Copyright © 2006 - 2010 Famous Poets And Poems . com. All Rights Reserved.
The Poems and Quotes on this site are the property of their respective authors. All information has been
reproduced here for educational and informational purposes.