Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FO'C'S'LE YARNS: 1ST SERIES. SPIES ALTERA; TO THE FUTURE MANX POET, by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN Poet's Biography First Line: O poet, somewhere to be born Last Line: Cain, karran, kewish supreme, supremest skillicorn! Alternate Author Name(s): Brown, T. E. Subject(s): Isle Of Man | ||||||||
O POET, somewhere to be born 'Twixt Calf and Ayre before the century closes, Cain, Karran, Kewish, or Skillicorn, Soft-lapt serene 'mid antenatal roses, Abide until I come, lest chance we miss Each other as we pass, nor any kiss Be planted on your brow thrice dear, Nor any spell of mine be murmured in your ear! For I will seek you in the bowers Where Plato marked the virgin souls desiring The birth-call of the ripening hours, And Spenser saw old Genius attiring The naked babes. And I will help to dress The awful beauty of your nakedness; And from that moment you shall be The Poet of the Isle, a Poet glad and free. Yet haply should the search be vain, For that I am not worthy -- you are coming: Heaven holds you promised! Karran, Cain, Kewish, Skillicorn, revealed the absolute summing Of cherished hopes. So may the Gods enlarge Your wings to flight immortal as the charge You keep to sing the perfect song Pent in your Mother's inmost heart, and pent so long! Nor lacking you of scholarship To guide the subtle harmonies soft-flowing From rugged outward-seeming lip, By vulgar minds not relished, all unknowing Of gentle arts. Trench deep within the soil That bore you fateful: toil, and toil, and toil! 'Tis deep as Death; dig, till the rock Clangs hard against the spade, and yields the central shock. No mincing this. Be nervous, soaked In dialect colloquial, retaining The native accent pure, unchoked With cockney balderdash. Old Manx is waning, She's dying in the tholthan. Lift the latch, Enter, and kneel beside the bed, and catch The sweet long sighs, to which the clew Trembles, and asks their one interpreter in you. Then shut the tholthan. Strike the lyre, Toward that proud shore your face reluctant turning; With Keltic force, with Keltic fire, With Keltic tears, let every string be burning. And use the instrument that we have wrought, Hammered on Saxon stithies, to our thought Alien, unapt, but capable of modes Wherein the soul its treasured wealth unloads. And, for the wayward thing is lax, Capricious, guard against the insidious changing Of pitch, that makes more tense, or slacks Our diatonics. See there be no ranging Ad libitum; but moor the wand'rer fast, And fix him where two sev'ring ages cast Their secular anchors. Matters not, If arbitrary, when or where one single jot. But come, come soon, or else we slide To lawlessness, or deep-sea English soundings, Absorbent, final, in the tide Of Empire lost, from homely old surroundings, Familiar, swept. O excellent babe, arise, And, ere a decade fail from forth the skies, Unto our longing hearts be born, Cain, Karran, Kewish supreme, supremest Skillicorn! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FO'C'S'LE YARNS: ENVOY. GO BACK! by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN IN MEMORIAM: J. MACMEIKIN; DIED APRIL 1883 by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN JOB THE WHITE by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN KITTY OF THE SHERRAGH VANE by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN MARY QUAYLE; THE CURATE'S STORY by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN THE INDIAMAN by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN THE MANX WITCH; A STORY OF THE LAXDALE MINES by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN TO G. TRUSTRUM by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN TOMMY BIG-EYES by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN A SERMON AT CLEVEDON; GOOD FRIDAY by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN |
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