In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 118

I
Contemplate all this work of time,
The giant labouring in his youth;
Nor dream of human love and truth,
As dying Nature's earth and lime;

But trust that those we call the dead
Are breathers of an ampler day
For ever nobler ends. They say,
The solid earth whereon we tread

In tracts of fluent heat began,
And grew to seeming-random forms,
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,
Till at the last arose the man;

Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime,
The herald of a higher race,
And of himself in higher place,
If so he type this work of time

Within himself, from more to more;
Or, crown'd with attributes of woe
Like glories, move his course, and show
That life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And batter'd with the shocks of doom

To shape and use. Arise and fly
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast;
Move upward, working out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die.

Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 1500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

How to Get There by Philip Levine
Philip Levine
Turn left off Henry onto Middagh Street
to see our famous firehouse, home
of Engine 205 and

Hook & Ladder 118 and home also to
the mythic painting “Fire under
the Bridge” decorating

the corrugated sliding door. The painting
depicts a giant American flag
wrinkled by wind

and dwarfing the famous Brooklyn Bridge
as it stretches as best it can
to get a purchase
Read Poem
0
191
Rating:

Clearances by Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984 She taught me what her uncle once taught her:
How easily the biggest coal block split
Read Poem
0
164
Rating:

Last Hope by Paul Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Beside a humble stone, a tree
Floats in the cemetery’s air,
Not planted in memoriam there,
But growing wild, uncultured, free.

Read Poem
0
178
Rating:

Out at Lanesville by David Ferry
David Ferry
In memoriam Mary Ann, 1932–1980 The five or six of them, sitting on the rocks
Out at Lanesville, near Gloucester; it is like
Listening to music. Several of them are teachers,
One is a psychologist, one is reading a book,
Read Poem
0
151
Rating:

Stony Limits by Hugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid
(In Memoriam: Charles Doughty, 1843-1926) Under no hanging heaven-rooted tree,
Though full of mammuks’ nests,
Read Poem
0
136
Rating: