Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LETTER-BURNING, by TRISTRAM LIVINGSTONE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LETTER-BURNING, by                    
First Line: What hand of ice, freezing the heart's
Last Line: Gulls unmolested, and the gale's dread sound.
Subject(s): Fire


What hand of ice, freezing the heart's good game,
Is this that holds me in a frigid power,
Who, cold-eyed, sit by the fire and see the flame
Destroy professed eternity in an hour?
Shrunken, the black sheets tinkle with the lightness of tin,
Writhe, crumble to powdered dust, and so go under --
The silver bells' winged paean silent within
Dark towers, and in the mind, an unvoiced wonder.

Now by this immolation have we done
With the palace built by folly on the sand.
No more her towers will raise against the sun
Paper presumption to shadow sea and land;
Henceforth may roam above this ruined ground
Gulls unmolested, and the gale's dread sound.





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