|
Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AN UNWRITTEN TRAGEDY, by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Ho, ye that thirst beside the running stream! Last Line: And pluck a feather out and write such things? Subject(s): Death; Hearts; Love - Loss Of; Tragedy; Dead, The | |||
Ho, ye that thirst beside the running stream! Love is a running stream, whose waters flow Upon the earth, and who would drink thereof Must bend him earthwards. There was such an one Who lay upon his belly in the mire And was not ashamed. Because he deemed it well That love, which is the strength of weaker things, Should make of Man a child. And, while he lay And summer winds were drowsing in his ears, The river of his love went rippling by. And thus he lived, and thus he might have died, Deaf to his fellows' scorn, and held it gain To lie a living corse unburied there Among the reeds of Time and hidden in From the world's stare. But Fate was watching him With envious eyes; and he had merited In truth much retribution at her hand. Alas that I should have such spite to tell! She took her vengeance at the fountain head, And made a desolation in the land. And how he dreamed and half outwitted Fate, Because his mind was single in his love; And how she took the pitiless winds in pay And set a wrack of clouds upon their back; And how, because she could not master him, She turned the waters of his love away; And how that man arose up from his lair, Foul with the ooze and with a beard grown grey Through his long shame; and how he turned and fled From the sun's face to dwell among the tombs, I would relate. And, if in simple words How some have learned the nakedness of truth, The carelessness of God, Man's cruelty And their own folly, it would be a tale To chill the lust of Youth and bend the knees Of Manhood's pride before the strength of Fate Which conquers all;And this I think would be The sum of human tragedy on Earth. But who am I to stay the wings of Death And pluck a feather out and write such things? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND ESTHER; A YOUNG MAN'S TRAGEDY: 50 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT ESTHER; A YOUNG MAN'S TRAGEDY: 51 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 110. THE OASIS OF SIDI KHALED by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |
|