Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CARPERS (AN ASPECT), by WILLIAM ROSE BENET


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CARPERS (AN ASPECT), by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Always the worm in the bud, the fly in the amber
Last Line: "carpers"" at odds with our age!"
Subject(s): Courage; Desire; Dreams; Mankind; Valor; Bravery; Nightmares; Human Race


Always the worm in the bud, the fly in the amber,
Something your delicate soul
Sniffs at and turns from, while men in raw multitudes clamber
Upward from famine and fear and oppression and pain
Led by red beacons and white and great dreams of a goal,
Through anguish again and again!

Always the finicking touch, the too-critical spasm,
The highly superior sneer,—
Here, in a world that is cleft by black chasm on chasm,
Here, where emotions alone give the courage to sweep
Wrong from its stronghold, and triumph o'er baseness and fear,—
Emotions you speak of as "cheap"!

You will be posed and correct in the ultimate Sheol,
Cynical, shallow, and vain,
Far too well-groomed and well-taught to be touched by the real,
Bragging your sense of "adjustment," deploring the rage,
Unrest, and despair and new faith of us, "coarser of grain,"—
"Carpers" at odds with our age!





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