Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EBB AND FLOW, by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EBB AND FLOW, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Said earth in the darkness wailing
Last Line: So life ebbs and flows forever, pulsing with the heart of god!'
Alternate Author Name(s): Dean
Subject(s): Death; God; Life; Dead, The


SAID Earth in the darkness wailing
As morningward she turned,
'Alas for the golden summers
Along my peaks that burned!
And alas for the beautiful maidens
Who danced on the flowery leas,
And my sons so bold in camp and mart
And out on the stormy seas;
Like the rose and the palm they faded
And fell by a merciless doom —
Alas for the beauty and valor,
While I roll on, a tomb!

'No cliff of the loftiest mountains,
No deepest cave of the sea,
But is mingled of dust that once had life
And has gone afar from me:
The æons were brief to tell my grief,
The wide sky has not room,
My winds chant dirges evermore
While I roll on, a tomb!

'Soon will the warm May twilights
Be thrilling with lovers' words;
I shall hear the laughter of children,
The songs of nesting birds;
But I know the shadow will follow,
And my heart is lost in gloom
As I think of the infinite myriads dead,
While I roll on, their tomb!'

Morning floods the sky with splendor;
Lo! an angel in the sun
Crying, 'Life is lord forever!
Life and death, O Earth, are one!
As the tides rejoice the ocean, summers wake or still the sod,
So Life ebbs and flows forever, pulsing with the heart of God!'





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