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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO FRANCIS THOMPSON by ANNA BUNSTON DE BARY

First Line: POET, WHOSE FOOTSTEPS LED BY 'DREADFUL HEIGHT'
Last Line: AUGHT WHOLLY STRANGE OF BITTER OR OF SWEET.
Subject(s): THOMPSON, FRANCIS (1859-1907);
POET, whose footsteps led by "dreadful height"
And loathsome floor of uttermost abyss,
Whose deep eyes searched the sun and night in night,
Whose lips knew golden philtres and the kiss
Of leaning stars, wormwood and bitter gall—
While now thy mortal feet lie eastward, still,
Where do thy spirit's soundless footsteps fall?
Pass they by some far peak or gleaming hill
Of Paradise, where secret music swells?
Or tread they where, through incensed arbours, flow
Celestial streams? or where, by long-wished wells
Of immortality, the amaranths blow?

Where'er they pass, save Peace, they cannot meet
Aught wholly strange of bitter or of sweet.



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