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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
DYING ENTHUSIAST TO HIS FRIEND, by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN Poem Explanation Poet's Biography First Line: Speak no more of life Last Line: Dare I longer the bright lot forego? %oh!No-no! | |||
Speak no more of life , What can life bestow, In this amphitheatre of strife, All times dark with tragedy and woe? Knowest thou not how care and pain Build their lampless dwelling in the brain, Ever, as the stern intrusion Of our teachers, time and truth, Turn to gloom the bright illusion, Rainbowed on the soul of youth? Could I live to find that this is so? Oh! no! no! As the stream of time Sluggishly doth flow, Look how all of beaming and sublime, Sinks into the black abysm below. Yea, the loftiest intellect, Earliest on the strand of life is wrecked. Nought of lovely, nothing glorious, Lives to triumph o'er decay; Desolation reigns victorious- Mind is dungeon-walled by clay; Could I bear to feel mine own laid low? Oh! no! no! Restless o'er the earth Thronging millions go: But behold how genius, love, and worth, Move like lonely phantoms to and fro. Suns are quenched, and kingdoms fall, But the doom of these outdarkens all! Die they then? Yes, love's devotion, Stricken, withers in its bloom; Fond affections, deep as ocean, In their cradle find their tomb: Shall I linger, then, to count each throe? Oh! no! no! Prison-bursting death! Welcome be thy blow! Thine is but the forfeit of my breath, Not the spirit! nor the spirit's glow. Spheres of beauty-hallowed spheres, Undefaced by time, undimmed by tears, Henceforth hail! oh, who would grovel, In a world, impure as this? Who would weep, in cell or hovel, When a palace might be his? Wouldst thou have me the bright lot forego? Oh! no! no! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SIBERIA by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS AGO by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN DUHALLOW by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN SOUL AND COUNTRY by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN ST. PATRICK'S HYMN BEFORE TARAH by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN THE DAWNING OF THE DAY by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN THE KARAMANIAN EXILE by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN THE NAMELESS ONE; BALLAD by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN THE ONE MYSTERY by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN THE RUINS OF DONEGAL CASRLE by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN |
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