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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE SKELETON'S WITNESS, by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: Rooted in soil dull as a dead man's eye
Last Line: The leprous whiteness of the rotting oak!
Subject(s): Skeletons
First Line: Rooted in soil dull as a dead man's eye
Last Line: The leprous whiteness of the rotting oak!
Subject(s): Skeletons
ROOTED in soil dull as a dead man's eye,
Dank with decay, yon ghastly oak aspires,
As if in mockery, to the alien sky,
Frowning afar through clouded sunset fires.
No garb of summer greenery girds it now:
Stripped as some naked soul at Judgment-morn,
It rears its blasted arms, its sullen brow,
Defiant still, though wasted, scarred, forlorn!
Not all its ruin came through storm or time;
Ages ago, 'mid winter's dreariest blight,
It saw and strove to shroud an awful crime,
But slowly withered from that fateful night!
An evil charm its many-centuried rings
Robbed of their pith; no more with healthful start
Its lusty life-sap, nursed by countless springs,
Coursed through great veins, and warmed its giant heart.
Now all men shun the gaunt accursed thing --
Only the raven with monotonous croak,
Tortures the silence, staining with black wing
The leprous whiteness of the rotting oak!
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COMPLAINT OF THE SKELETON TO TIME by ALLEN GINSBERG
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X-RAY by HORTENSE KING FLEXNER
SKELETON UNDER A LEDGE by LEONARD JENNEWEIN
ON THE SKELETON OF A HOUND by JAMES WRIGHT
A STORM IN THE DISTANCE (AMONG THE GEORGIAN HILLS) by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE