Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MEMORIALS, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MEMORIALS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Beside the shining river's brim
Last Line: The well-sweep and the ruined wall.
Subject(s): Dreams; Love; Memory; Past; Rivers; Nightmares


BESIDE the shining river's brim,
By vital green of grasses spanned
And circled by the hills, that rim
The blue horizon's wonder-land,
The ruins of a dwelling rise
Pathetic to the evening skies.

Mounds, where a hearth fire once was bright;
And tumbled rails that girdled in
A garden with its blooms alight
And waving growths, their next-of-kin:
Above, a well-sweep rising sheer
Out of the wreck of many a year.

An eloquence of what is past
Broods like a ghost around the place;
The dreams that brick and stone outlast
Sit peering in each other's face;
Lo, every corner stone is rife
With phantoms of forgotten life.

Here love was potent, work and play
Lifted twin voices clear and strong;
There is no other sound to-day
Save music of the river's song:
Across the crumbled years they call,
The well-sweep and the ruined wall.





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