Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE CATHEDRAL PORCH, by LAURENCE BINYON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Towering, towering up to the noon-blaze Last Line: Did not man sink so low, could he aspire so high? | ||||||||
TOWERING, towering up to the noon-blaze, Up to the hot blue, up to blinding gold, Pillar and pinnacle, arch and corbel, scrolled, Flowered and tendrilled, soar, aspire and raise The giant porch, with kings and prophets old High in their niches, like one shout of praise, From earth to heaven.In shadow of the door Cringing, a beggar stands; He holds out abject hands; His lips for pity and alms mechanically implore. Splendour of air and the bright splintered beam Carve all afresh in strong reverberate glow As if even now the passionate master-blow Struck from the stone the shapes of beauty's dream. Can a mere hand ever have fashioned so Desire's adventure, god-like force, supreme Sky-scaling joy?The beggar's toneless drone Comes from his laughterless Accepted wretchedness As from a long-dried well, where off-cast clutter's thrown. Prophet and saint and kingly king, whose eyes, Flashing authority, gaze and awe, you came From wombs of flesh, though now enthroned in fame. A mother heard the helpless wailing cries Of voices that have won the world's acclaim By wisdom, suffering, truth. August you rise Above this wreck, by whom the children run Careless with dancing limb, And laugh, and mock at him; And beggar, children, towering porch are equal in the sun. From the opened door bursts upon glorious wings Music: the shadowy silence moves with sound That overflows and rolls returning round. As if to itself, the pillared grandeur sings Of deeper than all thought has ever found, Of richer than the heart's imaginings, Of higher than all hope has dared to see. Like comment of a crow, Dulled, reiterate, slow, The human plaint croaks answer: Vanity! look on me! Who made the stark unfeatured quarry-block Live in those song-like pillars? And who smote The ancient silence into note on note Melodious as the river from the rock? Out of the heart of man such splendours float As make his vileness and his misery mock The prisoned soul: which shall bespeak him more Grandeur of stone and sound Or fawning abject, bound To his abasement, close as to a dungeon floor? Sunken eyes, craving hands, defeated shape, Whom to look on so humbles, you appear But as the avoided husk, shrivelled and sere, Cast by the spirit that springs up to escape To its own reality and radiance there For ever fresh as young bloom on a grape, Triumphing to be human, yet to win An amplitude beyond Dull care and fancy fond, And breathe the light that man was born to glory in. Yet littleness, and envy, and obscure pain Were mortised into that magnificence! Trading his wretchedness for pity's pence, Though this poor ruin from the depth complain, Slave to his self-lamenting impotence, Nor can his proud humanity regain; O Wonder of Man, in his indignity, Forfeit, disgrace, and rue, Shares he not still in you? Did not man sink so low, could he aspire so high? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JOHN WINTER by LAURENCE BINYON THE LITTLE DANCERS by LAURENCE BINYON BAB-LOCK-HYTHE by LAURENCE BINYON EDITH CAVELL by LAURENCE BINYON MEN OF VERDUN by LAURENCE BINYON O WORLD, BE NOBLER! by LAURENCE BINYON |
|