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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FRAGMENTS INTENDED FOR DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: A SUBTERRANEAN CITY, by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I followed once a fleet and mighty serpent Last Line: Whose earthquake-shaken leaves bore graves for nests. Subject(s): Cities; Urban Life | |||
I followed once a fleet and mighty serpent Into a cavern in a mountain's side; And, wading many lakes, descending gulphs, At last I reached the ruins of a city, Built not like ours but of another world, As if the aged earth had loved in youth The mightiest city of a perished planet, And kept the image of it in her heart, So dream-like, shadowy, and spectral was it. Nought seemed alive there, and the bony dead Were of another world the skeletons. The mammoth, ribbed like to an arched cathedral, Lay there, and ruins of great creatures else More like a shipwrecked fleet, too great they seemed For all the life that is to animate: And vegetable rocks, tall sculptured palms, Pines grown, not hewn, in stone; and giant ferns, Whose earthquake-shaken leaves bore graves for nests. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THINGS (FOR AN INDIAN) TO DO IN NEW YORK (CITY) by SHERMAN ALEXIE THE CITY REVISITED by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET TEN OXHERDING PICTURES: ENTERING THE CITY WITH BLISS-BESTOWING HANDS by LUCILLE CLIFTON THE CITY OF THE OLESHA FRUIT by NORMAN DUBIE DISCOVERING THE PHOTOGRAPH OF LLOYD, EARL, AND PRISCILLA by LYNN EMANUEL MY DIAMOND STUD by ALICE FULTON BALLAD OF HUMAN LIFE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: DIRGE FOR WOLFRAM by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: SAILORS' [OR MARINERS'] SONG by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |
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