Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PROBLEM AND ANSWER, by HORTENSE KING FLEXNER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PROBLEM AND ANSWER, by                    
First Line: To conjure life into a lonely waste
Last Line: And solve the subtle trick with more than sleep.
Subject(s): Creation; Death; God; Religion; Dead, The; Theology


To conjure life into a lonely waste
Of mud or ice, required a force more blind
With lust and strength, than the far-seeing God
We credit in the prayer-book, and yet
To have added death must prove the whirl-wind kind,
The tempest not a moment of black haste,
Creation not a stirring in the clod—
But genius, once the problem had been set,
To bring it to conclusion in one sweep,
And solve the subtle trick with more than sleep.





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