Jump to content

Mandragora/The River

From Wikisource
For works with similar titles, see The River.

Published in Mandragora (1917)

567731The RiverJohn Cowper Powys

THE RIVER

THE pallid river of regret.
Flows thro' that empty land;
The land you call my heart, where yet
    The poplar-trees of memory, wet
With ancient sorrow, stand.
    And mournfully, mournfully evermore
Thro' those trees the wind goes wailing.
    And like wreckage strewn on a lonely shore,
Where no man dwells and nevermore
    Shall any ship come sailing.
The dead leaves lie where they have fallen.
    Lie on the land where they have fallen,
The land where the roots of sorrow are set.
The land of the river of regret.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse