Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OMEN, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN



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OMEN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Now the day is dead, I cried
Last Line: I shut my doors up for the night.
Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund


Now the day is dead, I cried,
The sky stretched mute and mortified,
The sun gone, the clouds biding,
The first stars in dungeons hiding.
Lantern venturing its short glow,
I went to put the lodge doors to,
And tiffling there heard hardly aware
A harsh high harmony along the air --
Some steel-bit fox in the western wood,
The mind's rote idly understood --
And yet that wild voice rose and grew
Until I stood and strained for a view.
Dogs in kennels began to bark,
"There's queer things love this kind of dark";
And here it comes creeping yelp on yelp,
Along the hedge to us for help;
The wood-child with man's torture racked
Dares seek him out, if he'll retract.

No fox was this. Ho, look to the air!
The greyness showed a wonder there;
Piteous sobbing in an instant grown
The round of one man-careless tone.
A wave of wild geese there was flying,
Antheming what just seemed pain's crying,
All the swishing wings straight steering,
East in a solemn progress bearing;
Majesty with these was going,
Music in that shrill clangour flowing.
East went the god-disclosing flight.
I shut my doors up for the night.





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