Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A PLAINT TO MAN, by THOMAS HARDY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: When you slowly emerged from the den of time Last Line: And visioned help unsought, unknown. Subject(s): Men | ||||||||
WHEN you slowly emerged from the den of Time, And gained percipience as you grew, And fleshed you fair out of shapeless slime, Wherefore, O Man, did there come to you The unhappy need of creating me - A form like your own - for praying to? My virtue, power, utility, Within my maker must all abide, Since none in myself can ever be, One thin as a phasm on a lantern-slide Shown forth in the dark upon some dim sheet, And by none but its showman vivified. 'Such a forced device,' you may say, 'is meet For easing a loaded heart at whiles: Man needs to conceive of a mercy-seat Somewhere above the gloomy aisles Of this wailful world, or he could not bear The irk no local hope beguiles.' - But since I was framed in your first despair The doing without me has had no play In the minds of men when shadows scare; And now that I dwindle day by day Beneath the deicide eyes of seers In a light that will not let me stay, And to-morrow the whole of me disappears, The truth should be told, and the fact be faced That had best been faced in earlier years: The fact of life with dependence placed On the human heart's resource alone, In brotherhood bonded close and graced With loving-kindness fully blown, And visioned help unsought, unknown. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LIE DOWN WITH A MAN by TONY HOAGLAND WHY ARE YOUNG MEN SO UGLY by TONY HOAGLAND SONG OF MEN by EDGAR LEE MASTERS FIRST LESSON by PHYLLIS MCGINLEY AND THERE WAS A GREAT CALM' by THOMAS HARDY |
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