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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE MIRACLE, by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: Who beckons the green ivy up
Last Line: All but 'o alma!' nought.
Alternate Author Name(s): Ramal, Walter; De La Mare, Walter
First Line: Who beckons the green ivy up
Last Line: All but 'o alma!' nought.
Alternate Author Name(s): Ramal, Walter; De La Mare, Walter
Who beckons the green ivy up
Its solitary tower of stone?
What spirit lures the bindweed's cup
Unfaltering on;
Calls even the starry lichen to climb
By agelong inches endless Time?
Who bids the hollyhock uplift
Her rod of fast-sealed buds on high;
Fling wide her petals -- silent, swift,
Lovely to the sky?
Since as she kindled, so she will fade,
Flower above flower in squalor laid.
Ever the heavy billow rears
All its sea-length in green, hushed wall;
But totters as the shore it nears,
Foams to its fall;
Where was its mark? on what vain quest
Rose that great water from its rest?. . .
So creeps ambition on; so climb
Man's vaunting thoughts. He, set on high,
Forgets his birth, small space, brief time,
That he shall die;
Dreams blindly in his stagnant air;
Consumes his strength; strips himself bare;
Rejects delight, ease, pleasure, hope;
Seeking in vain, but seeking yet,
Past earthly promise, earthly scope,
On one aim set:
As if, like Chaucer's child, he thought
All but 'O Alma!' nought.
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