Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TWO CANALS, by AGNES LEE Poet's Biography First Line: The old canal forlorn, forsaken crawls Last Line: The flowers grow. Alternate Author Name(s): Freer, Otto, Mrs. Subject(s): Canals | ||||||||
The old canal forlorn, forsaken crawls, Its locks decayed and its low water stirred By minnows, all its past ensepulchred In whispering walls. Here mystery holds the moments with delight. The banks are dark with groves; the paths, half blotted, Struggle along the edges bramble-knotted, Scentful as night. The rough-hewn chasm is never entered now. The steep walls, viny with forgetfulness, Out from their crevices push flower and cress And greening bough. And parallel, and half a mile away, The new canal, a broad deep channel, reaches Across the prairie where the sunshine bleaches The grass all day. Its lines are open to the eye and clear. New minds laid out the granite with new science, And new invention wrought for time's defiance The perfect gear. Soon it shall bear high steamers on its breast; Soon, with the shedding forth of its renown, River shall tell to river, town to town The world's unrest. Ah, but a tree, a vine, a rose? Not one! The banks stretch out monotonous and bare. Naked and smooth the peerless walls upglare When the day is done. Modernity, build strong! The price we know. Bring to the land new steel, new stone, new faces! But it's in the crannies of the old, old places The flowers grow. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CANAL by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN OXFORD CANAL by JAMES ELROY FLECKER CROSSING A CANAL-LOCK by JOSEPH U. HARRIS BUNG TOWN CANAL by BENJAMIN FRANKLIN KING NEAR AMSTERDAM; AFTER ALBERT CUYP by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL INSCRIPTIONS FOR THE CALEDONIAN CANAL by ROBERT SOUTHEY HALT ON THE CANAL by PAUL CLAUDEL AGED PILOT MAN by SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS EPIGRAM ON THE SOUTHAMPTON CANAL by HENRY JAMES PYE |
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