Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON READING IN A NEWSPAPER THE DEATH OF A MOTHER AND THREE CHILDREN, by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON READING IN A NEWSPAPER THE DEATH OF A MOTHER AND THREE CHILDREN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Again, my soul, sustain the mournful page!
Last Line: Frail is our knowledge, frailer is our bliss.
Subject(s): Death - Children; Death - Babies


Again, my soul, sustain the mournful page!
Is there no difference? none of place? of age?
How the words tremble, how the lines unite!
What dim confusion floats before my sight!
Thrice happy strangers, to whose roving eyes
Unwet with tears these public columns rise!
Whate'er the changeful world contains of new,
These are events the least observed by you.
O Lambe, my early guide, my guardian friend,
Must thus our pleasures, thus our prospects end!
When the fond mother claspt her fever'd child,
Death hail'd the omen, waved his dart, and smiled,
Nor unobserv'd his lengthen'd wings o'erspread
With deeper darkness each devoted head.
She knows his silent footsteps; they have past
Two other babes; two more have breath'd their last.
What now avails thee, what avail'd thee then,
To shine in science o'er the sons of men!
Each varying plant, each tortuous root, to know,
How latent pests from lucid waters flow,
All the deep bosom of the air contains,
Fire's parent strength and earth's prolific veins.
The last and hardest lesson teaches this,
Frail is our knowledge, frailer is our bliss.





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