Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LAST SONG TO A POET, by MARJORIE MEEKER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LAST SONG TO A POET, by                    
First Line: This is the ancient irony of words
Last Line: Whose very silences are lovelier.
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


This is the ancient irony of words,
That they, the light, the free, the proudly spoken,
More perilous and bright than naked swords,
Should fall in rust and be each one a token
Of musty memory, obscure and broken.

Ah, cool imperious words that gravely strive
To pierce dark separate meanings, lover by lover,
In arrowed ways . . The savage few shall live,
The disenchanted fragile rest give over . . .
Let the cold comfort them, the hard night cover.

But you, who are to me haunted singing
Of all the world's lost beauty . . let none stir
That song with lesser voices, lightly bringing
Moth-words to music, lovely words to her
Whose very silences are lovelier.





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