Color song by Josephine Jacobsen

Poems

May 2007

Color song

Burke

was right!

from The Queen’s Songs

God gave us different colors, she said,
That burn in the world alway,
And some, she said, show best by night,
And some by day.

White lieth the dust upon the road
And moons, when they are new,
Be white, and the shroud that a woman sewed
May well be, too.

Red is the tip of the sharp green bud
Where the small bright roses grow
In the August sun, and fresh-spilled blood
Is red also.

In the new-come dawn a pallid blue
Be skies above the ships
Of the fishing folk, and the same is true
Of a dead man’s lips.

Green be the eyes of beasts by dark,
And bits of broken glass,
Green grows the moss on the forest-bark,
But greenest is grave-grass.

Josephine Jacobsen
more from this author

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 25 May 2007, on page 32

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/color-song-3157

rate this article for your user profile

E-mail to friend

add a comment

you must be a new criterion subscriber to post a comment. {subscribe now}

Subscriber login

The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices

Already a print subscriber? click for online access

Events

January 25 2009

TRAVEL EVENT: The New Criterion Cruise

more details

Webcasts

The Milt Rosenberg Show: Free Speech in an age of Jihad
Roger Kimball, David Yezzi, and James Panero discuss the New Criterion special pamphlet "Free Speech in an Age of Jihad." From the Milt Rosenberg Show, WGN. Recorded live in the Chicago studios 8/14/2008.

Roger Kimball on liberalism's response to Islam
From an evening with the Illinois chapter of the Friends of The New Criterion. Recorded on 8/16/2008.

Encounter Books at 10, an interview with Roger Simon

Weblog