Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FRANCISCA REINA: INTRODUCTION, by AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FRANCISCA REINA: INTRODUCTION, by                    
First Line: The horror which surpassed all telling
Last Line: Lord god! Help us forget.
Subject(s): San Francisco Earthquake And Fire (1906)


The horror which surpassed all telling;
The memories still welling, welling,
—Exhaustless fountain of our pain—
Let us forget.
The nights that made us gray ere mornings,
The desolation of those dawnings,
Whose like, no suns of fire-red stain
Had seen before nor may again,
Let us forget.

The losses which have made us brothers;
The sufferings, our own and others',
The wrecking of a life's long toil,
Let us forget.
Lest we grow hard and unforgiving,
Lest we lose that great joy of living—
The might to wrest from out the soil
The wealth that is our rightful spoil—
Let us forget.

Lest we get low and weary-hearted
Thinking of old and new thus parted
—A gulf whose bridge is hope alone—
Let us forget.
Let us look onward to the morrows;
As monuments o'er buried sorrows
Piling the best the world has known
Of iron strength and carven stone,
Let us forget.
Lord God! Help us forget.





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