Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BURIAL, by JOHN COWPER POWYS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BURIAL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Carrying tapers in soft white hands
Last Line: On the antichrist's last bed.
Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Churches; Funerals; Graves; Life; Sea; Estrangement; Outcasts; Cathedrals; Burials; Tombs; Tombstones; Ocean


Carrying tapers in soft white hands,
Whose thin flames blow, by the night winds shaken,
Troop the maidens along the sands,
Where he lies dead whom the sea has taken.

Every law has he trampled on;
Every altar has he defamed;
Outcast, Pariah, cursed one,
By his own kindred shamed.

Was it the sea-gulls whispering the girls
How their lover lay stiff and stark
That made them slip from their wreathed pearls
And carry their tapers thro' the dark?

Cold his lips as the wind-tossed spray;
Cold his mouth as the drifting foam;
But the candle-bearers kneel and pray
Ere they carry him home.

Two at his head and two at his feet,
And two where hang his hands,
And they chant the Church's dirge complete
As they carry him over the sands:

As they carry him slow to the holy place
Which living he had disdained,
As they lay him low in the tomb of his race
Which in life he had profaned.

When tomorrow's sun shines on the town
The people will curse the dead;
But his victims' tears will trickle down
On the Antichrist's last bed.





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