Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PRIMITIVE MAN, by MOSCHION


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PRIMITIVE MAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: First I shall trace and show in argument
Last Line: Left visible of older sin of feast.
Subject(s): Primitive Man; Cavemen


FIRST I shall trace and show in argument
The origin and tenure of man's life.
A generation once upon a time
There lived of men like-mannered with the beasts,
Their homes making in caverns of the hills,
In chasms where the sun spared visitation,
With never yet a roof on house, nor wide
City built strong and the stone towers thereof;
Nor ever down black earth the twisted plough
Went cutting clods that give rich grain for harvest.
No iron worked upon exuberant rows
Of vines -- the reveller's glory -- carefully pruned;
The womb of Earth was barren of livelihood.
For food men ate the flesh of mutual slaughter, --
This gave them feasting. Law was nothing worth;
Might reigned coequal on the throne with Zeus.
Then was the aspect of man's life reversed
By Time all things engendering, nurse of all;
Whether Prometheus toiled for man, or whether
Necessity fore-doomed, or Time and Use
Made Nature's own book clear for all to read.
Then first by skill of careful husbandry
In gift of grain was pure Demeter known;
Then Bacchus first, in the grape's luscious flow;
And Earth, unsown before, was furrowed now
With harnessed oxen; now their towns men towered,
Their houses walled for shelter, savagery
Converting to a milder way of life.
So custom first appointed for dead men
A place of burial, and their due meed of dust
To give unburied bodies, with no relic
Left visible of older sin of feast.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net