Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. WINGS, by EDWARD CARPENTER Poet's Biography First Line: Wings, wings Last Line: And I understood the meaning of the wings. Subject(s): Birds; Eagles; Freedom; Speech; Wings; Liberty; Oratory; Orators | ||||||||
WINGS, wings! I beheld the young leaves breaking from the buds and poised on the tips of the branches; I saw a squadron of anemones in the meadows all waving in the wind as impatient to take flight together; I looked at the acorn buried in the earth, and lo! it divided and put forth two seed-wings; and the embryo plant resembled the penis and dual testicles of man and the animals; And the starling like-shaped flew overhead through the trees, and the lark hung, a cross, in heaven; And the butterfly flew byemblem of the souland the bee hung downwards in the wind-flower cup; And I stood by the hive in the garden and marked how from its lips the bees shot like arrows into the wide valley below; And I stood in the great assembly and marked how from the decisive lips of the orator the winged words darted and transfixed the audience; And I saw on the Central American savannahs the half-wild horses racing and bounding together down to the rivers or resting in the shade of the trees; The light-footed tireless wolf I saw, and the eagle soaring over the mountains; and I watched the moth glide from the entrails of the caterpillar, and the gnat all perfect and stainless from its watery case; And within myself and under the skindeep downI felt the wings of Man distinctly unfolding. And as I lay on the great hill-side the kisses of the sun alighted on me after their long flight, and rested; and the birds warbled through the midday; and the flowers and the earth itself and the great tree-boles sent forth their incense-swarms of atoms; And behold! beyond the mountains and the great clouds floating by I beheld dim vast and aerial the figure as of a man with arms outstretched over the universe; And as I gazedlo! slowly all these other things swam with me and became incorporate with that figure, and the clouds floated and the streams ran down from ledge to ledge within it; And the trees with their square arms took on a new signification, and the little seeds with their twin cotyledons were for an emblem, and I saw whither the birds were hastening, and the direction of the index of all generation; And the starlings flew through the spaces of its thoughts, and the anemone squadrons trembled along its flanks; And the horse; galloping over the plains could not escape the plains they galloped over, nor the light-footed wolf its quest; And the eagle could not deny its own form as it soared over the mountainsnor I the knowledge of that which was unfolding within me: And I understood the meaning of the wings. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BROADCASTING CORPORATION by ANSELM HOLLO THE ORATION; AFTER CAVAFY by CAROLYN KIZER A VOICE FROM THE SWEAT-SHOPS (A HYMN WITH RESPONSES) by LOUIS UNTERMEYER A SIMPLIFICATION by RICHARD WILBUR MOTHER TONGUE by RANDY BLASING THE BOOK OF THE DEAD MAN (#13): 1. ABOUT THE DEAD MAN AND THUNDER by MARVIN BELL THE BOOK OF THE DEAD MAN (#13): 2. MORE ABOUT THE DEAD MAN AND THUNDER by MARVIN BELL SATIRE: 1 by AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS AS A MOULD FOR SOME FAIR FORM by EDWARD CARPENTER |
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