Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DUNES, by HARRY HIBBARD KEMP


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DUNES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Upon the sand the slant rain falls in vain
Last Line: Pricks space in universal emptiness.
Subject(s): Dunes; Rain


Upon the sand the slant rain falls in vain,
The multitudes of the arrows of the rain;
The long, gray slopes sprout cruelty, and the sand
Creeps on, forever marching against the land
That would be fertile and fat with ordered peace
If these invasions from the sea would cease . . . .
Upon the sand the slant rain falls in vain;
Futile are the invasions of the rain . . . .
There lies no bound nor terminus to the sand
Sloping its million spears against the land
Or innumerably streaming in charges blind
And terrible on the little horses of the wind . . . .
And, though each bent blade seems to thwart their course,
It only shifts the pattern of their force;
Innumerably they begin again,
Grain on enlisted, diamond-helmeted grain,
Overwhelming the armies of the rain . . . .
Only a bitter, black marsh here and there,
With a snake-mottled flower savage-fair,
Or speargrass naked in the sky's caress,
Pricks space in universal emptiness.





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