Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SORROW'S MADNESS, by YAKOV POLONSKY Poet's Biography First Line: When, clinging to your lidded coffin Last Line: To death's void galley chained like sullen slaves. Subject(s): Cemeteries; Coffins; Death; Graves; Hearts; Love - Loss Of; Graveyards; Dead, The; Tombs; Tombstones | ||||||||
When, clinging to your lidded coffin, I saw you, love, on your last journey go, No sobs my maddened heart could soften, And I seemed dead, like you, below. Yours was the grave men see so often: Your small frame fitted snugly, so; With leaden stupor blinded, I beheld it Vanish, I heard the clods' soft blow. My coffin was not thusbut spacious, And gay with leaves and a blue pall in state. And fastened to it glared the sun of mid-day: A gilded, gawdy coffin-plate. Your coffin disappeared beneath wet earth and gravel, But minealas!still glittered mockingly.... An orphaned soul and widowed, I let my sad eyes travel About me, my heart's heart, and I could see How, buried deep in my resplendent coffin, And bearing death within me, I would sue For happiness now lost forever; I knew my nothingness, my thirst for you. I longed to break the spell of numbness Lay waste my living tomb, wrench back its bars, To tear aside the graveclothes of the heavens, To stamp upon the sun and scatter wide the stars, And dash across this endless graveyard Where dead worlds fill the graves, To find your dwelling where no memories languish, To Death's void galley chained like sullen slaves. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SURVIVOR AMONG GRAVES by RANDALL JARRELL SUBJECTED EARTH by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE GRAVE OF MRS. HEMANS by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER THOSE GRAVES IN ROME by LARRY LEVIS NOT TO BE DWELLED ON by HEATHER MCHUGH ONE LAST DRAW OF THE PIPE by PAUL MULDOON ETRUSCAN TOMB by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS ENDING WITH A LINE FROM LEAR by MARVIN BELL THE BLIND PREACHER by YAKOV POLONSKY |
|