Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WRITTEN AMONG THE BASSES ALPS, by JOHN RUSKIN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WRITTEN AMONG THE BASSES ALPS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Have you in heaven no hope -- on earth no care
Last Line: Breathe in this human dust its living soul.
Subject(s): Alps; Mountains; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


HAVE you in heaven no hope—on earth no care—
No foe in hell—ye things of stye and stall,
That congregate like flies, and make the air
Rank with your fevered sloth—that hourly call
The sun, which should your servant be, to bear
Dread witness on you, with uncounted wane
And unregarded rays, from peak to peak
Of piny-gnomoned mountain moved in vain?
Behold, the very shadows that ye seek
For slumber, write along the wasted wall
Your condemnation. They forget not, they,
Their ordered function and determined fall,
Nor useless perish. But you count your day
By sins, and write your difference from clay
In bonds you break and laws you disobey.
God! who hast given the rocks their fortitude,
The sap unto the forests, and their food
And vigor to the busy tenantry
Of happy soulless things that wait on Thee,
Hast Thou no blessing where Thou gav'st-Thy blood?
Wilt Thou not make Thy fair creation whole?
Behold and visit this Thy vine for good—
Breathe in this human dust its living soul.





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