Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CHALLENGE, by LUCY ATKINSON MCILWAINE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CHALLENGE, by                    
First Line: Who dares to say life is a futile thing
Last Line: Perhaps its weight of dross would bear you down.


Who dares to say life is a futile thing
Because no hungry arm has crushed your form,
No lips have brushed your lips! Can you not sing
The elemental violence of storm --
Wild rain and rushing wind? Is there no pure
Delight in beauty bodied in a cloud,
An elm in April, or the shrilly sure
Staccato of a bird that's thickly boughed?

There is no kiss like that of wind at dawn,
Of spray back-flung from a presumptuous prow.
Nor do they stifle with the cruel spawn
Of disillusion -- facing Then with Now.
Not every brow was meant to wear Love's crown.
Perhaps its weight of dross would bear you down.





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