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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BOAST OF THE TIDES, by WILLIAM ROSE BENET Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Brief is the power ye assume Last Line: Lords over all! Subject(s): Tides | |||
Brief is the power ye assume, Motes on a mote world aswing! Heaving through darkness and spume, Deeply intoning your doom, Hark what we sing! Sweeping all ages we spread, Tolling our dirge through the years, Morning to nightfall our tread Sounds o'er the graves of your dead, Sure as your tears. Haled by the moon from afar, Whelm we the homes where ye hide; Lords where the green fathoms are, Lords of the reef and the bar -- Lords the world wide. Swelling to thunderous surge, Dandle we lightly your ships; Crooning monotonous dirge, Weltering deeply to purge Man from our lips. Yet, fettered fast to our law, Blindly we chafe on a chain, Surge 'neath a scourge, and withdraw, Shamed, when the orb of white awe Gyves us again. Ever and ever -- but, hark! O'er the far rim of the sea, When the last storm-stricken bark Foams to its fate down the dark, We shall be free! Sun-high in mutinous grace, Then shall our wild crests be curled, And the vast roar of our race Boom, hissing greenly, through space, Wide of the world. The wreck of the moon for our might! Far shall we thunder and fall, Pouring in splendors of light Down the steep gulfs of the night -- Lords over all! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NORTHWIND ESCARPMENT by NORMAN DUBIE TIDE TURNING by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS LOW TIDE ON GRAND-PRE by BLISS CARMAN THE HIGH TIDE AT [OR, ON THE COAST OF] LINCOLNSHIRE by JEAN INGELOW ULTIMA THULE: THE TIDE RISES by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE TIDES by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT THE FALCONER OF GOD by WILLIAM ROSE BENET |
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