DESERT ISLAND POEM 2

Silver

by Walter De La Mare

This was the first poem I remember actually liking; the first poem that was music to my ears! Is it a sonnet or is it just a 14-line poem? I really couldn't care less! 

Silver was also the poem that introduced me to figurative language – the memorable opening couplet with its ‘moon and shoon’ rhyme might be sneered upon by modern critics as trite and cliché but I think many people’s carefree usage of 'trite' and 'cliché' is both trite and cliché. The right word is the right word.

Shoon is a variant of shoe and the idea of the moon creeping around in a slipper turning everything silver simply enchanted children of my generation and I am certain this delightful poem will enchant subsequent generations of children for many years to come.


Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breast peep
Of doves in silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.