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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO BARDS by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON

First Line: A BARD WHO WROTE IN STAVES
Last Line: THE BITTER NORTH.
Subject(s): GRAVES; SEA; SINGING & SINGERS; TOMBS; TOMBSTONES; OCEAN; SONGS;

A BARD who wrote in staves
Once made a heathen hymn.
It had this stern refrain,
That moved as though in pain:
"The under-glimpse of graves
Makes the sea grim."

A southland singer sung
With happy heart and free.
The living, not the dead,
He dealt with, and he said:
"The world is glad and young,
And good to me."

And ever since, mankind
Is shuttled back and forth
Between these singers twain
Of glad and sad refrain: --
The southland warm and kind,
The bitter north.



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