Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OVID IN PONTUS, by BRYAN WALLER PROCTER



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OVID IN PONTUS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hard by the banished euxine (a black doom!)
Last Line: Have sought to find it on that desert beach.
Alternate Author Name(s): Cornwall, Barry; Proctor, Bryan Waller
Subject(s): Black Sea; Russia; Soviet Union; Russians


HARD by the banished Euxine (a black doom!)
Haunted the poet Ovid. He was sent,
With love upon his soul, to banishment,
And sank, an amorous meteor, quenched in gloom.
Bright tears were lost when Ovid died. A man
Who loved and mourned so sweetly well might win
Melodious sorrow for his unknown sin.
All ages wept his fate: Politian
Developed his brave wrath in ten-foot verse,
And many a nameless scribbler rhymed a curse:
Only Augustus, in his timorous pride,
Exiled the poet from his beauty's side,
Sending him, fettered, to the banished sea.
But who may chain the poet's spirit free?
He thought and murmured -- oh! and late and long
Bestowed the music of his soul in song;
Bequeathed to every wind that kissed that shore,
Sighs for lost Rome, which he must see no more;
Regrets, repinings (of all hope bereft),
And tears for Caesar's daughter, loved and left!
And so it was he wept long years away
By savage waters; so did he rehearse,
Throughout the paleness of the winter's day,
The many sorrows of his love-crowned verse,
Until, in the end, he died. His grave is lost;
Somewhere it lies beyond all guess, all reach,
Though bands of wandering lovers, passion-crossed,
Have sought to find it on that desert beach.





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