Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DOVES, by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY


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First Line: Ah, if man's boast and man's advance be vain
Last Line: "god keeps,"" I said, ""our little flock of years."
Subject(s): Doves; London


AH, if man's boast and man's advance be vain,
And yonder bells of Bow, loud-echoing home,
And the lone Tree foreknow it, and the Dome,
The monstrous island of the middle main;
If each inheritor must sink again
Under his sires, as falleth where it clomb
Back on the gone wave the disheartened foam? --
I crossed Cheapside, and this was in my brain.

What folly lies in forecasts and in fears!
Like a wide laughter sweet and opportune,
Wet from the fount, three hundred doves of Paul's
Shook their warm wings, drizzling the golden noon,
And in their rain-cloud vanished up the walls.
"God keeps," I said, "our little flock of years."






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