Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BOAST OF THE TIDES, by WILLIAM ROSE BENET


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BOAST OF THE TIDES, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Brief is the power ye assume
Last Line: Lords over all!
Subject(s): Tides


Brief is the power ye assume,
Motes on a mote world aswing!
Heaving through darkness and spume,
Deeply intoning your doom,
Hark what we sing!

Sweeping all ages we spread,
Tolling our dirge through the years,
Morning to nightfall our tread
Sounds o'er the graves of your dead,
Sure as your tears.

Haled by the moon from afar,
Whelm we the homes where ye hide;
Lords where the green fathoms are,
Lords of the reef and the bar --
Lords the world wide.

Swelling to thunderous surge,
Dandle we lightly your ships;
Crooning monotonous dirge,
Weltering deeply to purge
Man from our lips.

Yet, fettered fast to our law,
Blindly we chafe on a chain,
Surge 'neath a scourge, and withdraw,
Shamed, when the orb of white awe
Gyves us again.

Ever and ever -- but, hark!
O'er the far rim of the sea,
When the last storm-stricken bark
Foams to its fate down the dark,
We shall be free!

Sun-high in mutinous grace,
Then shall our wild crests be curled,
And the vast roar of our race
Boom, hissing greenly, through space,
Wide of the world.

The wreck of the moon for our might!
Far shall we thunder and fall,
Pouring in splendors of light
Down the steep gulfs of the night --
Lords over all!





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