Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AT LAST, DEAR WARD, I TAKE A RHYMING QUILL, by GEORGE SANTAYANA Poet Analysis Poet's Biography Last Line: On thine own regal cornerstone: I will! Subject(s): Oxford, England; Creative Ability; Imagination | ||||||||
At last, dear Ward, I take a rhyming quill; From its cleft point there springs an inky rill Whose twisted stream, with intersecting flow, Shall trace the ways my feet and fancies go. They do not go together, for my feet Wear the gray flagstones of an Oxford street And wake the ivy-muffled echoes thrown From great walls' crumbling honeycomb of stone Or press the rich moist fields that sweep between Long hedgerows budding into joyous green. But what can Oxford's halls or hedgerows be, Or outraged lingering sanctities, to me? Not of another springtime have I need Nor of this cradle of a still-born creed, But of bold spirit kindred to the powers That reared these cloisters and that piled these towers. Of some wide vision and determined will With charm to captivate and strength to kill. The world is wide: it is not flesh and bone And sun, and moon, and thunderbolt alone; It is imagination swift and high Creating in a dream its earth and sky. Why then gape idly at external laws When we ourselves have faculty to cause? Build rather on your nature, when you can, And bid the human spirit rule the man, Nay, not the man, but all the world as well, Till man be god of heaven and of hell. Come, mad ambition, come, divine conceit, That bringest nature down at fancy's feet, Alone creative, capable alone Of giving mind the sceptre, man the throne. Build us more pyramids and minsters still On thine own regal cornerstone: I will! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE INVISIBLE MAN by HICOK. BOB THE IMAGINED COPPERHEAD by ANDREW HUDGINS A SICK CHILD by RANDALL JARRELL IMAGINARY TROUBLE by JOHN KENDRICK BANGS EVERYTHING THAT ACTS IS ACTUAL by DENISE LEVERTOV ON THE MEETING OF GARCIA LORCA AND HART CRANE by PHILIP LEVINE |
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