Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NEWS OF THE WORLD: 3, by GEORGE BARKER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Let her lie naked here, my hand resting Last Line: Lie one night in my arms and give me peace. Subject(s): War | ||||||||
Let her lie naked here, my hand resting Light on her broken breast, the sleeping world Given into our far from careful keeping, Terrestrial daughter of a disaster of waters No master honours. Let her lie to-night Attended by those visions of bright swords That never defended but ended life. My emerald trembler, my sky skipping scullion, See, now, your sister, dipping into the horizon, Leaves us in darkness; you, nude, and I Seeking to loose what the day retrieves, An immoderation of love. Bend your arm Under my generation of heads. The seas enfold My sleepless eye and save it weeping For the dishonoured star. I hear your grave Nocturnal lamentation, where, abandoned, far, You, like Arabia in her tent, mourn through an evening Of wildernesses. O what are you grieving for? From the tiara'd palaces of the Andes And the last Asiatic terraces, I see The wringing of the hands of all of the world, I hear you long lingering disillusion. Favour the viper, heaven, with one vision That it may see what is lost. The crime is blended With the time and the cause. But at your Guilty and golden bosom, O daughter of laws, I happy lie to-night, the fingering zephyr Light and unlikely as a kiss. The shades creep Out of their holes and graves for a last Long look at our bare empire as it rolls Its derelict glory away into darkness. Turn, liar, Back. Our fate is in your face. Whom do you love But those whom you doom to the happy disgrace Of adoring you with degradations? I garb my wife, The wide world of a bride, in devastations. She has curled up on my hand, and, like a moth, Died a legend of splendour along the line of my life. But the congregation of clouds paces in dolour Over my head and her never barren belly Where we lie, summered, together, a world and I. Her birdflecked hair, sunsetting the weather, Feathers my eye, she shakes an ear-ring sky, And her hand of a country trembles against me. The glittering nightriders gambol through A zodiac of symbols above our love Promising, O my star-crossed, death and disasters. But I want breath for nothing but your possession Now, now, this summer midnight, before the dawn Shakes it bright gun in the sky, before The serried battalions of lies and organizations of hate Entirely encompass us, buried; before the wolf and friend Renders us enemies. Before all this, Lie one night in my arms and give me peace. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...I AM YOUR WAITER TONIGHT AND MY NAME IS DIMITRI by ROBERT HASS MITRAILLIATRICE by ERNEST HEMINGWAY RIPARTO D'ASSALTO by ERNEST HEMINGWAY WAR VOYEURS by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA THE DREAM OF WAKING by RANDALL JARRELL THE SURVIVOR AMONG GRAVES by RANDALL JARRELL SO MANY BLOOD-LAKES by ROBINSON JEFFERS HOLY POEMS: 1 by GEORGE BARKER |
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