Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LAST RAY, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LAST RAY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Now the world grows weak again, the sinewed woods are all / astrain
Last Line: And sneers as one great laugh or gust huffs down the writhing avenue.
Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund
Subject(s): England; Landscape; English


Now the world grows weak again, the sinewed woods are all astrain,
And Tempest in his ecstasy on horn or pipe or harp or drum
Makes his mad asymphony; he runs like wild hogs, stops like a child,
Shrieks like a warning water-bird, and mutters fee and fo and fum.

Now through all this travail fierce one sunbeam does not fail to pierce
The spider-curtained darkness in the attic of black Jacob's farm,
And finds up there the purple phial that waits this glance: the sun's espial
Is not alone: the poor soul there espies as well the lurking charm.

Gods, she cries, tiptoes and takes, and glaring opens, sniffs and shakes,
While on her soul the stormsong bursts, and groanings knell through roof and flue;
Clashing gloom is whirled across, she drinks, and smashes the cold glass,
And sneers as one great laugh or gust huffs down the writhing avenue.





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