Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SPECTRES THAT GRIEVE, by THOMAS HARDY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: It is not death that harrows us,' they lipped Last Line: Until the new-year's dawn strode up the air. Subject(s): Grief; Holidays; New Year; Sorrow; Sadness | ||||||||
'IT is not death that harrows us,' they lipped, 'The soundless cell is in itself relief, For life is an unfenced flower, benumbed and nipped At unawares, and at its best but brief.' The speakers, sundry phantoms of the gone, Had risen like filmy flames of phosphor dye, As if the palest of sheet lightnings shone From the sward near me, as from a nether sky. And much surprised was I that, spent and dead, They should not, like the many, be at rest, But stray as apparitions; hence I said, 'Why, having slipped life, hark you back distressed?' 'We are among the few death sets not free, The hurt, misrepresented names, who come At each year's brink, and cry to History To do them justice, or go past them dumb. 'We are stript of rights; our shames lie unredressed, Our deeds in full anatomy are not shown, Our words in morsels merely are expressed On the scriptured page, our motives blurred, unknown.' Then all these shaken slighted visitants sped Into the vague, and left me musing there On fames that well might instance what they had said, Until the New-Year's dawn strode up the air. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONOMA FIRE by JANE HIRSHFIELD AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARDS by JOHN HOLLANDER WHAT GREAT GRIEF HAS MADE THE EMPRESS MUTE by JUNE JORDAN CHAMBER MUSIC: 19 by JAMES JOYCE DIRGE AT THE END OF THE WOODS by LEONIE ADAMS AND THERE WAS A GREAT CALM' by THOMAS HARDY |
|