Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON VIEWING A STATUE OF DAVID, by EVA GORE-BOOTH


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON VIEWING A STATUE OF DAVID, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This was the shepherd boy who slung the stone
Last Line: The king is dead, immortal stands the child.
Alternate Author Name(s): Selina
Subject(s): David (d. 962 B.c.); Jews; Statues; Judaism


THIS was the shepherd boy who slung the stone
And killed the giant; sunshine and the wind
Had given his harp so clear and strange a tone
That all the world forgave him when he sinned.

The gently formed and stately Greek who stood
On the Piazza, throned in classic pride,
Was not the boy who roamed through field and wood,
Fighting and singing on the bright hillside.

Swift on the mountains, swift to save or slay;
Eager and passionate and lithe of form;
Fighting and singing, pausing but to pray,
Unto his God of music and of storm.

The bare hillside and sharp rocks castellate
Rang with the clanging of his bow;
Where in the dawn of the world's love and hate,
He found and would not slay his sleeping foe.

No sorrowful shades of the evil years
Falls in the boy's face of the wood and wild;
Vanished are rags and lust and passionate tears;
The King is dead, immortal stands the child.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net