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TO THE STONE CUTTERS, by         Recitation by Author     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Last Line: The honey of peace in old poems
Variant Title(s): To The Stone-cutters
Subject(s): Stones; Transience; Granite; Rocks; Impermanence


I
To the Stone-Cutters
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
II
Sphinx
In a landscape of fallen afternoon,
The bronze giant lay,
Hissing with relief, letting the dark stream
Shine, after hard day
Of godhood. He was glad they had gone,
Those little Alexanders,
To their high cities, and he could lie here
On the rock, and wash his body
In the dark flowage, cooling his battered
Braun, dulling the reigns
Of the pulsing brain: they had vexed him enough,
These flurries and banners.
III
O It Is Excellent
To have survived this disaster
That has put the stars out.
IV
Alien
The sea of course, and women,
And the staring liquid of their eyes,
But also
A secret burning
Shivering, buried freedom,
In the man's breast-bone:
The cormorant fishermen
In the hawk-haunted water
Where the world ends.






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