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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


FALSORUM DEORUM CULTOR by WILLIAM ROSE BENET

Poet Analysis

First Line: GIVE ME MY MYSTERY, NOR LET ME BE
Last Line: AND THE THRINAKRIAN HIDES CREPT O'ER THE GROUND!
Subject(s): FABLES; ALLEGORIES;

Give me my mystery, nor let me be
Set in a world of rote and rule o' thumb.
My little eyes see all there is to see?
My scrap of brain know all there is to know?
My mumming lips are -- dumb
Before the presences that form and flow
Through each day's mystery!

Then Fable, they malign you? 'Tis a day
Assured of this, that nothing is assured.
Come to me, Fable! Foot your satyr way!
Since all's so plain there's nothing plain to me,
Rather I would be cured
By purest essences of phantasy
As in the world's mad May!

Right bard, who spoke for "Triton's wreathed horn"!
And this I speak for: Glaucus and his train,
Finned shapes and scaly, on this sea-blue morn
Seek with their soft AEolic prophecies
Lost islands of the main.
I follow Leucothea overseas
For the old myth reborn!

Oh rough-horned river gods, blue-mantled round,
Rise from your streams to-day that flow as flowed
Thrice-haunted streams 'neath Myrtion! At the sound,
Sweet Superstition, wake a little while --
As when the full spits lowed
Through awe-struck silence on Apollo's isle
And the Thrinakrian hides crept o'er the ground!



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