Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AFTERWARDS, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Those olden royal sunsettings Last Line: No circe charms. Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund | ||||||||
THOSE olden royal sunsettings Have dwindled from the barren years; A shadow hides us ancient kings And pioneers. When shall we see the wonderways Where led the lustrous limbs of dawn, Whose sometime beauty wolfish days Have spoiled and gnawn: From set of sun to rise of sun The dim ship communing with stars, And plashing onward till she won New harbour-bars: Or, girt with sloth of yellow heat, Oared toilsomely to bight or creek, Or battling with great groundswell's beat, Sirocco's shriek? Now, nothing is but talk and tale Of underwhirl and octopus: Of blind shelf whence the seamew's wail Was warning us: Of blue rocks clashing hoarse with crime, Of Gorgon gazing life to stone, Of all things that the perished time Has made our own. So up the bleak hill creeps the plough, Pulled by the slavering shambling steers; So from the sullen valleys now We turn in tears. We till and sow the stubble ley, And labour on our little farms; No Siren sings us down from sea, No Circe charms. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FOREFATHERS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN REPORT ON EXPERIENCE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN SOLUTIONS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE GIANT PUFFBALL by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE MIDNIGHT SKATERS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN VLAMERTINGHE: PASSING THE CHATEAU, JULY 1917 by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN 11TH R.S.R. by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN 1916 SEEN FROM 1921 by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN A 'FIRST IMPRESSION': TOKYO by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN A BRIDGE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |
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