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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Earth is a quicksand; yon square tower Last Line: Thy tiny skull? Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund Subject(s): Cemeteries; Churchyards; Graveyards | |||
EARTH is a quicksand; yon square tower Would still seem bold, But its bleak flinty strength each hour Is losing hold. Small sound of gasping undertow In this green bed! Who shuts the gate will shut it slow, Here sleep the dead: Here sleep, or slept; here, chance, they sleep, Though still this soil As mad and clammed as shoals acreep Around them boil. The earth slips down to the low brown Moss-eaten wall Each year, and nettles and grasses drown Its crumbling crawl. The dog-rose and ox-daisies on Time's tide come twirling, And bubble and die where Joy is gone -- Sleep well, my darling. Seldom the sexton with shrewd grin Near thy grave-cloth, With withered step and mumble thin Awakes eve's moth. Not a farm boy dares here destroy, Through red-toothed nettles, The chiff-chaff's nest, to strew the shells Like fallen petals. The silver-hooded moth upsprings, The silver hour, And wanders on with happy wings By the hush tower, That reels and whirs, and never drops, That still is going; For quicksand not an instant stops Its deadly flowing. And is Joy up and dancing there Where deepening blue Asks a new star? is that her hair There freshed with dew? Here, O the skull of some small wretch, Some slaughtered jot, And bones like bits of hated quitch Recount fate's plot. So lies thy skull? This earth, even this Like quicksand weaves. Sleep well, my darling, though I kiss Lime or dead leaves. Sleep in the flux as on the breast, In the vortex loll; In mid simoom, my innocence, rest; In lightning's soul Bower thyself! But, joyous eyes, The deeps drag dull -- O morning smile and song, so lies Thy tiny skull? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...POEM FOR MY TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY by KENNETH KOCH THERE IS ALWAYS A LITTLE WIND by TED KOOSER JEWISH GRAVEYARDS, ITALY by PHILIP LEVINE SAILING HOME FROM RAPALLO by ROBERT LOWELL THE HILL ABOVE THE MINE by MALCOLM COWLEY ALMSWOMEN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |
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