He never flickered a muscle, never stirred; Speechless he stood beneath the stinging whips She laid upon him in each syllable That crackled from her lips. Yet in his heart a river of passion rolled, And swept his words into a groaning jam, As when a torrent chokes a rushing stream With logs across the dam. But when she flung at him the dynamite Of foul black names and insinuating doubt, With a mighty moan the pent-up tide gave way, And the jam of words went out: Words cut by a madman's axe; words brittle with ice; Words pointed, barbed with sleet and torn of branch; Words that cascaded, ricocheted, and split, Fell in an avalanche. Down with the flood of wrath they pitched and plunged, Until at last there fell the utter peace That settles on a stream when logs go out, And flood-tides find release. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THOUGHTS ON THE COMMANDMENTS by GEORGE AUGUSTUS BAKER JR. WORLDLY PLACE by MATTHEW ARNOLD MARATHON, SELECTION by CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES TEMPER by CLARA EXLINE BOCKOVEN ABIDE WITH US by HORATIO (HORATIUS) BONAR ELEGY WRITTEN IN SPRING by MICHAEL BRUCE |