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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SEAGULLS IN LONDON, JANUARY, 1940, by RUTH PITTER Poet's Biography First Line: They stormed upon me like catastrophe Last Line: If this be folly, o forgive it me! Subject(s): Birds; Forgiveness; Gulls; London; Clemency; Seagulls | |||
They stormed upon me like catastrophe. All fear of man was gone: scenting the food, The harpy-crowd gathered and broke on me. These, bred in solitude Among the sea-pink in the salt sea-marsh, Moated about by creeks of quaking slime Lonelier than mountain deserts, now with harsh Throats besought alms at this most bitter time. My hands, cold-palsied, felt their crooked bills, Their pirate sails struck on my stiffened cheek; Their cold wet feet touched me with fleeting chills Frail and inadvertent, that seemed to speak For all the fury, of existence weak; And one was lame, Lagged on the turn, got nothing when he came. Heart-withering hunger! how the terror whips The shrinking mind! knowing ourselves curtailed, More steel, less grain loading the threatened ships, We, for whom plenty never yet has failed, Feel the frore shadow of what famine now Clutches the bowels of both foe and friend, And while all Europe shudders in the snow Dare not foresee, nor think upon the end. And I am moved to ask you to forgive If I have hope: if like a stubborn seed The heart turns tough, determined still to live, Made a mere dormant centre of the need For bare existence, of the will to be: If this is hardness, O forgive it me! Pardon the faith, that will not be denied, One with my life, and needing not a name, That like these wings over the rushing tide Beats upward, and not knowing whence it came Battles with hunger, anguish, and the sea! If this be folly, O forgive it me! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JUST AS MORNING TWILIGHT AND THE GULLS, GLOUCESTER, MAY 1966 by CHARLES OLSON A POEM BY GARNIE BRAXTON by JAMES WRIGHT GULLS by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS A GULL GOES UP by LEONIE ADAMS UNDER THE WHARF by IDA COLE BARTLATT THE SEAGULL by HERBERT BASHFORD THE SPARROW'S SKULL by RUTH PITTER |
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