Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE COAL YARD, by LOUIS GINSBERG


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE COAL YARD, by                    
First Line: The night was hushed and the street was dark
Last Line: Huddled and crowded into pieces of coal!
Subject(s): Coal Mines & Miners


The night was hushed and the street was dark;
Dimly came the flicker of the lone pale arc.
And dreary from the corner, a chill wind stole,
Huddling past the desolate yards of coal.

But while I peered at the yards of gloom
And saw how the heaps lay dark as doom,
I heard a crackle and I heard a roar --
And the black piled coal was seen no more! --
Night was shattered -- and Time in the street
Fell into fragments about my feet!

I saw before me how the forests towered,
How the fronds and the ferns and the creepers flowered;
I saw the jungles of gigantic grasses;
I saw the waving of the monstrous masses;
And the looping mosses and the crowding spores! --
I watched how the greenery leaps and pours
Down from the branches in a rich green blaze,
Flooding on the tangle of the riotous maze!
But more than this, I could feel the heat
Soak on the forest and simmer and beat!
I spied dim swamps and I spied wide lakes,
Where hissed and threaded the huge red snakes;
I saw the lizard and Okapi lunge;
And the rearing Brontosaurus thrash and plunge!
But while they were battling in the bellowing din,
I heard a peal and a crash begin:
Earthquakes weltered and convulsions tore --
I heard Chaos dance -- I heard Chaos roar --
The deafening jungles were hurled down deep --
Earth closed over. . . . Then in one swift sweep,
Burying forest and beast and tree,
Years came flooding like a wild white sea!

Again I stood in the hush of night
Underneath the flicker of the lone pale light;
And I gazed at jungles and their fronds and ferns --
Jungles of foliage in a heat that burns --
Jungles with sunlight and beasts, -- the whole
Huddled and crowded into pieces of coal!





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