Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN EXCELSIS, 1889, by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN EXCELSIS, 1889, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh how delectable it is to be
Last Line: More to be magnified, more dread, more sweet.
Subject(s): Bastille (paris); France; Love; Nature; Prisons & Prisoners; Sea; Singing & Singers; Sound; Ocean


Oh how delectable it is to be
Over against the sea
When through deep gloaming, the drench'd dying gloaming
In long long line on line the waves go foaming
Strandward, aye voicing, 'Yea, eternally!'

To watch where wave on wave of the rock'd flood
Falls with a sibilant thud—
Falls, and flows back, 'mid huge reverberations
O'er the torn beach, 'mid foam for exhalations,
'Mid foam about its falling shed for blood;

To hear, while equinoctial storms subside,
The vast untiring tide
Singing old Nature's mystic In Excelsis,
Its strange self-centred psalm! Surely nought else is
More sweet, more dread, more to be magnified.

Nay, there is one thing more delectable
Than the sea's echoing swell!
To hear confuséd sound of many people
At feast in shadow of each village steeple
This day when years ago the Bastille fell;

To hear, where flags flap red, and blue, and white,
The cannon's hoarse delight,
The bells, the clarions, the huge mystic throbbing
Of marching feet, the laughter, the hush'd sobbing
Of such as whisper to themselves: 'The night

Slips from thy face, O France, and thou art fair
Under thy laurelled hair
After the traffickings of kings and traitors,
After the shifts of priests and progress-haters,
After much blood and infinite despair!'

To hear this is to hear beyond defeat,
Republican, complete,
France chaunting myriad-voiced her In Excelsis,
Her ultimate choric song, than which nought else is
More to be magnified, more dread, more sweet.





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