Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FABRIQUE OF THINGS SPENT, by EDITH MATILDA THOMAS Poet's Biography First Line: All must have beauty, else they pine and die Last Line: The lovely semblance when ye say 'tis flown! Subject(s): Beauty; Life; Soul | ||||||||
ALL must have Beauty, else they pine and die. Some to possess her the far quest must lead, Ascend Olympus and invade the sky! I will create the Beauty that I need Out of spent things that disregarded lie, From every mundane use dismissed and freed. Give me your dust, O delicate gone things That were so worshipped in the ascendent year, That now the harpy gust befouling flings Under their feet who have nor love nor fear. Give me the moultings from yon wonder wings And I to Heliopolis will steer And find the phoenix at those crimson springs Where he renews him on his cradle-bier! I will take shard and wave-shot laminae Of shells that lie along the slope-brown sand, Housings of life, scarce more than foam of sea That shaped them, whirling -- whirling would disband. Bring the long ribbons of the dulse to me, These will I braid together, strand by strand. Bring me but from the cottage hearth a toll Of filmy ash that gives soft death to fire, Like a gray moss o'ergrowing the live coal Until its substance it has wormed entire, Within such driftage there abides a soul Will recreate itself at my desire. So now I warp my loom and sit to weave, Shuttle in hand, the woof I seek alone. But I will take whatso the rest would leave -- Treasurable once but now unvalued grown. I, that come after, riches will I sheave In the waste fields where careless ones have sown. All must have Beauty -- but I can retrieve The lovely semblance when ye say 'tis flown! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CRUEL FALCON by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE WHOLE SOUL by PHILIP LEVINE I KNOW MY SOUL by CLAUDE MCKAY HONORING THE SAND; IN MEMORY OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL by ROBERT BLY THE CHINESE PEAKS; FOR DONALD HALL by ROBERT BLY THE LIFE OF TOWNS: TOWN OF THE EXHUMATION by ANNE CARSON |
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