Classic and Contemporary Poetry
GRAY; FOR A PICTURE, by FORD MADOX FORD Poet's Biography First Line: The firelight gilds the patterns on the walls Last Line: And wonder who shall do the like again. Alternate Author Name(s): Hueffer, Ford Hermann; Hueffer, Ford Madox Subject(s): Death; Farm Life; Graves; Dead, The; Agriculture; Farmers; Tombs; Tombstones | ||||||||
THE firelight gilds the patterns on the walls, The yellow flames fly upwards from the brands, On fold and farm the sad grey twilight falls, And shrouds the downs and hides the hollow lands. And pensive is the hour and bids the brain Weave morals from the peeping things of dusk, Dwelling a moment on the darkling pane, The tapping roses and the pot of musk. That picture therethe one the firelight shows: The poet by a grave, beneath the may, With ready notebook and unruffled brows And elegiac poseyou guess it's Gray. Below, beneath his rounded, withied grave, A ploughman sleeps, the tablet at his head Tells the short tale of life that such men have The scarcely cold and half-forgotten dead Who "five and fifty years the furrows trod," Such were the time and toil of William Mead Who passed: "And now, he's resting'neath this sod," "And there's an end," you say. 'Twere so indeed. But William was a ploughman of the best, Who ploughed his furrow straight from hedge to shaws From sun in east to sun low down in west, With following of rooks and gulls and daws. He taught some score the honest trick of plough Crop-headed yokels, youths of clay and loam Who learnt his ways and gathered from him how To drive good team and draw straight furrow home. Thus when his work was done and done his days He left a school of workersto this day We recognize their touchand owe due praise For bread and thought to such as he and Gray. Who ploughed such furrows each in his own field, Who sowed such seed and gathered in such grain, That we still batten on their well-sown yield, And wonder who shall do the like again. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SURVIVOR AMONG GRAVES by RANDALL JARRELL SUBJECTED EARTH by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE GRAVE OF MRS. HEMANS by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER THOSE GRAVES IN ROME by LARRY LEVIS NOT TO BE DWELLED ON by HEATHER MCHUGH ONE LAST DRAW OF THE PIPE by PAUL MULDOON ETRUSCAN TOMB by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS ENDING WITH A LINE FROM LEAR by MARVIN BELL |
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