Classic and Contemporary Poetry
DEAD JOYS, by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Moan on with thy loud changeless wail Last Line: Or art thou pitiless as wind or sea? Subject(s): Death; Desolation; Disasters; Funerals - At Sea; Love - Loss Of; Sailing & Sailors; Shipwrecks; Dead, The; Burials At Sea; Seamen; Sails | ||||||||
MOAN on with thy loud changeless wail, Desolate sea, Grinding thy pebbles into thankless sand. Oh, could I lash my angry heart like thee Until it broke upon an iron land, The very rocks should tremble and turn pale To be the witness of my agony. Fierce wind, the sob of thy dull pitiless voice Is thick with snow. Hiss out thy tale into my ice-bound ear In sleety whispers, for full well I know That in thy wanderings thou hast seen my joys, My young joys, dead in some far hemisphere, A land of blackness and colossal woe. Naked they lay, my shipwrecked mariners, Upon the shore. The low moon pointed her long fingers, red As a murderer's hand, between their prison bars In the ribbed wreck, which hungry ocean tore At the first spring-tide to reclaim the dead And hide them in his jaws for evermore. Tell me, thou silence, what sad death they died, Poor castaways! What wolfish eyes were on each other there, When they had eaten all that hunger stays, And thirst no longer could be quenched with pride! Didst thou not see their teeth grow white and bare, Grinding a savage thought for many days, Until they fell upon their own red hearts? Thou didst not see, Or Thou hadst surely had some pity, God, When they crept gnawing to the vital parts, My joys, which I had nursed so tenderly In the very cradle of my love's abode. Or art Thou pitiless as wind or sea? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SAILS OF MURMUR by ANSELM HOLLO THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TOM BOWLING ['S EPITAPH] by CHARLES DIBDIN HOW'S MY BOY? by SYDNEY THOMPSON DOBELL LOVE AT SEA by THEOPHILE GAUTIER ESTHER; A YOUNG MAN'S TRAGEDY: 50 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT ESTHER; A YOUNG MAN'S TRAGEDY: 51 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 110. THE OASIS OF SIDI KHALED by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |
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