Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE ULTIMATE (2), by JOHN COWPER POWYS Poet's Biography First Line: So this is the ultimate Last Line: Towards eternity! Subject(s): Fate; Life; Love; Plays & Playwrights; Reason; Sea; Soul; Destiny; Intellect; Rationalism; Brain; Mind; Intellectuals; Ocean | ||||||||
So this is the ultimate -- That we bleed with our backs to the wall, While the rats and weasels of fate Eat at our liver and gall; Eat at our hearts with teeth of bane, And tug at the sick white roots of pain Where every man's alone, And scrape a tune on the deep nerve-string That is love and life and everything, And gnaw our flesh to the bone. Is this the ultimate? No! This is nothing at all! Some human dramas stop with this; With this some curtains fall. But the play that the high gods love In their Theatre of Space Has the mind, the mind for the stage thereof And the soul for its dancing place! Oh shapes of terror and fear, Oh shapes of loathing and lust, That gibber and jibe at us here Ye break earth's shallow crust. Far back that stage recedes -- Who knows where that stairway goes? Who knows where that passage leads? And that door? Who knows? Who knows? For the rats that again and again Gnaw at each rib and joint Of the vessel of our pain Stop gasping at this point; And in crowds they flee from the ship That steers for the open sea And turns the prow of its bleeding lip Towards eternity! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HALL OF OCEAN LIFE by JOHN HOLLANDER JULY FOURTH BY THE OCEAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS BOATS IN A FOG by ROBINSON JEFFERS CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE FIGUREHEAD by LEONIE ADAMS |
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