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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
REVELATION, by ROBERT PENN WARREN Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Because he had spoken harshly to his mother Last Line: Something important about love, and about love's grace. Subject(s): Mothers & Sons | |||
Because he had spoken harshly to his mother, The day became astonishingly bright, The enormity of distance crept to him like a dog now, And earth's own luminescence seemed to repel the night. Roof was rent like loud paper tearing to admit Sun-sulphurous splendor where had been before But the submarine glimmer by kindly countenances lit. As slow, phosphorescent dignities light the ocean floor. By walls, by walks, chrysanthemum and aster, All hairy, fat-petalled species, lean, confer, And his ears, and heart, should burn at that insidious whisper Which concerns him so, he knows; but he cannot make out the words. The peacock screamed, and his feathered fury made Legend shake, all day, while the sky ran pale as milk; That night, all night, the buck rabbit stamped in the moonlit glade, And the owl's brain glowed like a coal in the grove's combustible dark. When Sulla smote and Rome was rent, Augustine Recalled how Nature, shuddering, tore her gown, And kind changed kind, and the blunt herbivorous tooth dripped blood; At Duncan's death, at Dunsinane, chimneys blew down. But, oh! his mother was kinder than ever Rome, Dearer than Duncan -- no wonder, then, Nature's frame Thrilled in voluptuous hemispheres far off from his home; But not in terror: only as the bride, as the bride. In separateness only does love learn definition, Though Brahma smiles beneath the dappled shade, Though tears, that night, wet pillow where the boy's head was laid Dreamless of splendid antipodal agitation; And though across what tide and tooth Time is, He was to lean back toward that recalcitrant face, He would think, than Sulla more fortunate, how once he had learned Something important about love, and about love's grace. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE JEWELS AND THE GRACCHI by JOHN HOLLANDER A MOUNTAIN MOTHER by WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY SONG: EARLY DEATH OF THE MOTHER by GREGORY ORR POEM FOR MY SONS by MINNIE BRUCE PRATT DOORS, DOORS, DOORS: 2. SEAMSTRESS by ANNE SEXTON A SENSE OF DIRECTION by KAREN SWENSON SWIMMING IN THE PACIFIC by ROBERT PENN WARREN |
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