Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SUB SPECIE AETERNITATIS, by CHARLES WILLIAMS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SUB SPECIE AETERNITATIS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When, shaping nations, the creative hand
Last Line: Is filled with humour, irony, and song.
Subject(s): Art & Artists; England; Literature; Poetry & Poets; English


WHEN, shaping nations, the Creative Hand
Moved among causes, purposefully wise,
It wrought a starry and invisible land
And named it England: under holier skies

And in celestial darkness hid awhile,
It waits for our discovery; its glades
Constable saw, and Wordsworth mile by mile
Treading its roads, beheld what heavenly shades

Changed and withdrew from mountains, moors, and rills:
But O what deep and supernatural sound
The silent ear encounters in those hills,
What language native to that holy ground,

Assuming all our common speech to be
A thing of wonder, awful and divine,
Authentic accents of eternity,
Heard here in Milton's, Blake's, or Shakespeare's line.

This is the heart of England; it is found
Only by such as set their souls to find
The harbours and great cities that abound
Beyond the waters of the temporal mind.

This is the truth of England; though she die
On earth, a sinful and unhappy land,
She with her sisters speaks immortally
Of all the knowledge that her eyes have scanned.

Within man's soul she dwells and hath her part,
She is inviolable, free, and strong
For ever with perfection, since her heart
Is filled with Humour, Irony, and Song.





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