Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NORTH CAPE, by LOUIS L'AMOUR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NORTH CAPE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A hollow hand of hills that clutches dawn
Last Line: To fierceness and to fury here ... And cold.
Subject(s): Cold


A hollow hand of hills that clutches dawn
Close in their impotent grasp, as fading slow
The shadows slip away before the day
And leave the sun behind; its filtered glow
Can leave no warmth on slopes so sparsely clad,
But sickly lies among the brown blades there
Helpless against this cold, impassive earth;
Even the stones are numb and stubborn here --
Even the dust lies flat against the road --
Even the streams to immobility
Are chilled to frozen pathways here, no joy
Of water whispering to the stones, but stark
And sullen silence down these empty hills.
Even the wings of Death avoid this place,
Avoid these barren fields, for Death itself
Must nestle to the warmth of life and youth,
And nothing dies where nothing lives. These men
Wither away and fall, but do not die;
They age, but not with years, they die but not
With death, but with the chill of things outworn.
No youth is here, for these are born to age;
Even the summer sun is haunted here
With chilled and doubting glow -- then fades away.

And what to these can mean the Renaissance,
The fire that flamed in Florence and gave birth
To Angelo, Leonardo, and their dreams?
These fires are frozen here, and numb with cold --
The unresponding hills, gray seas, gray earth,
Gray clouded skies -- no warmth of blues or greens;
Even the passions here are cold and dull.
That Athens was, that Plato dreamed, that Poe
Had haunted nights with hunger from his heart
Or Byron sang of love -- what mean these things
To these? This is the land of Thor, but not
Of Aphrodite -- no Pan could be conceived
Upon these sleeping slopes or in these thoughts.
For there is only strength, and hard hands formed
To fierceness and to fury here ... and cold.





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