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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A LETTER TO THE LIBERALS, by KENNETH PATCHEN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: It's not enough Last Line: Your whiter cloaks provide a better sight on you. Subject(s): Politics & Government | |||
It's not enough That doom shall find us whole of hate And terror; valid ruin admires devotion Growing out of wonder that it lived At all. Can we admire and will the sport of clowns Performing in their tents, enclosed from us By shock of finding now that we Have other things to do? For after all The truth is out, the hour breaks, the bridges Fall, the dams give way; our time's At hand. We know the voices, the clumsy faces: Almighty ghost, have us. Almighty God, save us. We bring no boxed solution; our flags Stream out for use, not trumpet-masses. I'm tired of all they say: "How do you say 'worker'? Make it ring?" Near the run-down factory The hills still climb to cloud and silence, Birds singing, their notes no whorish alphabet Or key to foreign trade; the horizon, Indolent and shifting as men or tides, Has scars and wonderment unchanged by general strikes. Submit no more. They said the wind would polish names And thunder clear the quiet streets: I saw them smile I knew they lied. Spies aware of danger grasp for guns Not straws: be noble and be true Your whiter cloaks provide a better sight on you. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AFTER TENNYSON by AMBROSE BIERCE JULY IN WASHINGTON by ROBERT LOWELL FIFTY APRIL YEARS by KHALED MATTAWA FOUR POEMS ABOUT JAMAICA: 3. A HAIRPIN TURN ABOVE READING, JAMAICA by WILLIAM MATTHEWS A FOREIGN COUNTRY by JOSEPHINE MILES |
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