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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TWO HISTORIES, by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB First Line: Two histories there are in england's isle Last Line: Forbidding civil war to imp its wings. Subject(s): Butterfield, Herbert (1900-1979); Great Britain - Civil War; History; English Civil War; Historians | |||
(On reading Professor H. Butterfield's "The Englishman and his History") Two Histories there are in England's isle: One is of hard sought scientific fact God by research laborious and exact And needing patient teamwork to compile— A monument that none may dare hold vile, For thus, it teaches, Truth herself must act, Whose is the deft and salutary tact To explode the false, lay bare the forger's guile. The other pores not over books and deeds, But lives enshrined in hearts of transient men, Continuously as age to age succeeds, And little recks it the revising pen: It is that Whiggery the nation reads In its own eyes and every citizen. And seasons have been when It has supremely grasped the helm of state, Making tumultuous passions moderate And yield to cool debate; Disarming mobs, gently unthroning Kings, Forbidding civil war to imp its wings. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE IN PICTURES by JAMES MCMICHAEL THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE by JOHN ASHBERY INITIAL CONDITIONS by MARVIN BELL THE DREAM SONGS: 290 by JOHN BERRYMAN THE EROTICS OF HISTORY by EAVAN BOLAND THEM AND US by LUCILLE CLIFTON AMONG THE LAKES by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB AN EPITAPH (AFTER THE GREEK EPIGRAMS) by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB |
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