Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ALL THINGS FLOW, by CHARLES R. MURPHY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ALL THINGS FLOW, by                    
First Line: In the month of the great moon
Last Line: "crying: ""if life is the having died, what then is death?"
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


"Hestia alone remains in the house of the gods." -- Plato.

In the month of the great moon,
Through the dust whereon beauty rides,
Through the wine of the afternoon
Golden,
Hear you what slides
With the loosened leaf; what hides,
To the spirit alone beholden,
In the fruit that gives over strife
Falling,
Calling: "If death is the having lived, what then is life?"

Slowly, through the land, in desert places,
In sandy yards, in useless orchard corners,
In stony fields where man shall reap no harvest,
Turned to a heaven of their own like sleepers dreaming,
Old wagons stand apart fading to chaos;
Holding the fallen fruit, holding the sunlight,
Feeding the earth and sky, burnt with the fever
Of rust and the dry relaxing of fibres,
Slowly through the land under the autumn weather
Old wagons stand apart, rotting together.

Riders of the roads,
Shall be as old wagons
Marking the useless earth;
Riders of roads,
Passing the barns,
Passing the cornfields,
Passing the stubble,
Passing the fences
Dark with the vine,
Rider of roads
Remember the summer!
From pause to pause, and in between the laboured

Ceaseless growth until the corn is strong
To bear the deep-sea blue of captured sky;
Multitudes of summer, multitudes of high
Mast-heads of beauty, brief infinity
Shored by the waiting months, and neighboured
Far off spring and song.

Homeward from home man gazes, and the embers
Guards of his hearth for hearths yet far away
Where eyes may look on wonder and not fear
Beauty perfect, beauty the dying of the dear
Moments that have beatitude so near
No man may doubt the end remembers
Only the perfect way.

Shapes of men passing; oh! dark fire of flesh,
Shape of the leaves of oak at western sky,
Shape of a boulder -- but when the rock has crumbled,
Why is there victory for any one of these?
Snow was once itself wind-swept to beauty
Moulded and firm as any one of these.

Shapes of men passing; oh dark fire of flesh,
Your crown the instant of the circling birds,
Your goal a pause where spirit says: "Here drink,"

When will you be the thing you are becoming,
Burning, like leaf of maple, light in light?
When will your hope of truth, yearning, not always
Over the southern tree-tops take its flight?
In the month of the great moon,
Through the dust whereon beauty rides,
Through the wine of the afternoon
Golden,
Hear you what slides
With the loosened leaf; what hides,
To the spirit alone beholden,
In the flesh that gives over breath
Dying,
Crying: "If life is the having died, what then is death?"





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