Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE WELL, by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN Poet's Biography First Line: I am a spring Last Line: Take me, and weep me on the desolate hills! Alternate Author Name(s): Brown, T. E. Subject(s): Wells | ||||||||
I AM a spring -- Why square me with a kerb? Ah, why this measuring Of marble limit? Why this accurate vault Lest day assault, Or any breath disturb? And why this regulated flow Of what 'tis good to feel, and what to know? You have no right To take me thus, and bind me to your use, Screening me from the flight Of all great wings that are beneath the heaven, So that to me it is not given To hold the image of the awful Zeus, Nor any cloud or star Emprints me from afar. O cruel force, That gives me not a chance To fill my natural course; With mathematic rod Economising God; Calling me to pre-ordered circumstance Nor suffering me to dance Over the pleasant gravel, With music solacing my travel -- With music, and the baby buds that toss In light, with roots and sippets of the moss! A fount, a tank: Yet through some sorry grate A driblet faulters, till around the flank Of burly cliffs it creeps; then, silver-shooting, Threads all the patient fluting Of quartz, and violet-dappled slate: A puny thing, on whose attenuate ripples No satyr stoops to see His broken effigy, No naiad leans the languor of her nipples. One faith remains -- That through what ducts soe'er, What metamorphic strains, What chymic filt'rings, I shall pass To where, O God, Thou lov'st to mass Thy rains upon the crags, and dim the sphere. So, when night's heart with keenest silence thrills, Take me, and weep me on the desolate hills! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ABBA JACOB IN THE WELL by MARILYN NELSON ONCE MORE BREVITY by ROBERT FROST PERSONAL HELICON; FOR MICHAEL LONGLEY by SEAMUS HEANEY THE WELL OF ST. KEYNE by ROBERT SOUTHEY VERSES OCCASIONED BY THE SUDDEN DRYING UP..ST.PATRICK'S WELL by JONATHAN SWIFT DESERTED DERRICK by MARY ELIZABETH BRANTLEY A SERMON AT CLEVEDON; GOOD FRIDAY by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN |
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