Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. ARENZANO, by EDWARD CARPENTER Poet's Biography First Line: In the great church over the little fishing-village Last Line: And join the ave maria, ave, ave. Subject(s): Churches; Public Worship; Religion; Cathedrals; Church Attendance; Theology | ||||||||
IN the great Church over the little fishing-village, In the gloom of evening and of the spacious interioronly a few candles lighted over a side altar [The great doors wide open to the twilight over the bay, with silhouettes of figures entering, and continual tread of feet upon the stone floor] There in the dusk the fisher-wives kneel and pray: Ave Maria, ave, ave. A great throng, hardly visible, with shawls thrown over their headsand men and children: Ave Maria, ave, ave. The long monotonous semi-savage refrain and wash of voices, Unending, like the rhythm of the sea itself, The untrained choir, the rise suspense and breaking of the wave of trebles, the answer of the basses in passionate iterationthe mesmeric influence The great Christ over the main altar, half lost in gloom, with arms outstretched, and crucified, The faint sweet smell of incense, The long Past: The long Past from which it all comes Strange voices and refrains, As from the coasts of Tyre, and the worship of Ashtoreth, Or this is Isis the ever-virgin Madonna and her infant Horusone with the Virgin of the stars Or this the antiphonal music of the psalms Within the Jewish Temple. The same great needs of human life all down the ages Each tiny drop to feel the living wave it forms a part of; Dear Love; and Death; the narrow clear-cut bounded present, the dread Unknown, the children clinging to each other Not one that dies, not one the waves engulf, But tears and agony to those remaining. Ah! who can tell and who can see the end? Man that art God yet perishest as grass! I sit here in a corner of thy world-old temple (Here in this old fishing-village just as much as anywhere else) In the dark unknown unnoticed I sit, And hear the ceaseless sounding of Thy Sea, And join the Ave Maria, ave, ave. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MYSTIC BOUNCE by TERRANCE HAYES MATHEMATICS CONSIDERED AS A VICE by ANTHONY HECHT UNHOLY SONNET 11 by MARK JARMAN SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE COMING OF THE PLAGUE by WELDON KEES A LITHUANIAN ELEGY by ROBERT KELLY AS A MOULD FOR SOME FAIR FORM by EDWARD CARPENTER |
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