Memory Of The Corniche Road Poem by Jewell Miller

Road that passes valleys,
(A many-tinted scroll),
Dark with pines, gay with blooms,
Unwinds beside the sea;
Where silver-dusted olives,
(A fangled fringe of olives)
Sway and droop, droop and sway,
In wistful ecstasy.

Road that passes mountains
(Rose and purple mountains),
Umber-shadowed, flecked with gold,
Flung against the sky;
Flaunting gypsy caravans,
Corsairs, Moors, and Saracens,
Roamed this road, sailed this sea,
While centuries drifted by.

Road that passes valleys,
(Smiling, peaceful valleys),
Deep and still, deep and still,
Inland far and free;
Fraught with many windings,
With shining, beckoning windings,
Where drowsy torrents trickle
Their way to sapphire sea.

And, oh, the velvet blackness
(The silent, steadfast blackness),
Where reverential cypresses
Point unto the star;
When night unfolds her curtain,
Her lucent, swaying curtain,
To wrap it round, wrap it round,
O'er all things near and far.

Road that is a scroll
(A wondrous-tinted scroll)
Dark with pines, gay with blooms,
Unwinding by the sea,
I know your old enchantment,
And feel the spell of vanished things
You whisper back to me.