Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SUNSET AND MOONRISE, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: All the west whereon the sunset sealed the dead year's Last Line: All the hours are theirs of all the seasons: death has but his hour. Subject(s): Death; Evening; Holidays; Moon; New Year; Night; Dead, The; Sunset; Twilight; Bedtime | ||||||||
ALL the west, whereon the sunset sealed the dead year's glorious grave Fast with seals of light and fire and cloud that light and fire illume, Glows at heart and kindles earth and heaven with joyous blush and bloom, Warm and wide as life, and glad of death that only slays to save. As a tide-reconquered sea-rock lies aflush with the influent wave Lies the light aflush with darkness, lapped about by lustrous gloom, Even as life with death, and fame with time, and memory with the tomb Where a dead man hath for vassals Fame the serf and Time the slave. Far from earth as heaven, the steadfast light withdrawn, superb, suspense, Burns in dumb divine expansion of illimitable flower: Moonrise whets the shadow's edges keen as noontide: hence and thence Glows the presence from us passing, shines and passes not the power. Souls arise whose word remembered is as spirit within the sense: All the hours are theirs of all the seasons: death has but his hour. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BREATH OF NIGHT by RANDALL JARRELL HOODED NIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP by ROBINSON JEFFERS WORKING OUTSIDE AT NIGHT by DENIS JOHNSON POEM TO TAKE BACK THE NIGHT by JUNE JORDAN COOL DARK ODE by DONALD JUSTICE POEM TO BE READ AT 3 A.M by DONALD JUSTICE ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT by BOB KAUFMAN A BALLAD OF DEATH by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE |
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