Classic and Contemporary Poetry
LAMENT OF GRANITE, by DAVID ROSS First Line: Rather had we been ground Last Line: Than granite remembered of man. Subject(s): Lament; Mills And Millers; Progress; Stones; Granite; Rocks | ||||||||
Rather had we been ground In the mills of calamity, Dust unremembered of man; Rather had we been crossed with base clay Or blooded with corrupt mortar, To live forgotten Behind the hybrid's mask, Than granite remembered of man. Before the Talmud, before the Koran, Before the confusion of the word, We studied in the books of silence And were learned in its alphabet; We dreamed in the quiet earth And intoned: "In the beginning was the silence; All things are but inflections of its voice." Was it mole or slug or worm That nibbled earth's axis, And disturbed the wheel? The melodious balance? Or daemon, Jealous of the wheel's Day-welling, night-falling rounds, Who broke the balanced curve of silence With wash-out of thundered syllable? We know not what: Or mole or slug or worm or jealous daemon; But once so wrenched from quiet We learned of wind and rain and night's breathing, New vocables, And these we added to our silence. Man plucked us from our ancient quarry With plundering forceps; Sprinkled us with baptismal sweat And named us for misfortune. O, cursed be the mad physician And his bitter instrument. We who once were lengths of latitude Are measured now by parsimony's inch; Now are we huddled and dwarfed To make a steeple's frame. We who once intoned: "In the beginning was the silence; All things are but the inflection of its voice," Must now bear calumny of cracked bells. Rather had we been ground In the mills of calamity, Forgotten as dust, Than granite remembered of man. | Discover our poem explanations - click here!Other Poems of Interest...ROCK AND HAWK by ROBINSON JEFFERS STONE'S SECRET by MARGARET AVISON CONTRA MORTEM: THE STONE by HAYDEN CARRUTH NAMING FOR LOVE by HAYDEN CARRUTH OF THE STONES OF THE PLACE by ROBERT FROST THE EYE IN THE ROCK by JOHN HAINES THE HEAD ON THE TABLE by JOHN HAINES |
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