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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SAINT PAUL: 18 by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS

First Line: OFTEN FOR ME BETWEEN THE SHADE AND SPLENDOUR
Last Line: GREW THERE A SILENCE ROUND THE LORD AND ME.
Subject(s): PAUL, SAINT (1ST CENTURY); SAUL OF TARSUS;

Often for me between the shade and splendour
Ceos and Tenedos at dawn were grey;
Welling of waves, disconsolate and tender,
Sighed on the shore and waited for the day.

Then till the bridegroom from the east advancing
Smote him a waterway and flushed the lawn,
God with sweet strength, with terror, and with trancing,
Spake in the purple mystery of dawn.

Oh what a speech, and greater than our learning!
Scarcely remembrance can the joy renew:
What were they then, the sights of our discerning,
Sorrows we suffer, and the deeds we do?

Lo every one of them was sunk and swallowed,
Morsels and motes in the eternal sea;
Far was the call, and farther as I followed
Grew there a silence round the Lord and me.



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