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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE REFORMER, by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL Poet's Biography First Line: Before the monstrous wrong he sets him down Last Line: Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars. Alternate Author Name(s): Hedbrooke, Andrew Subject(s): Reform And Reformers | |||
BEFORE the monstrous wrong he sets him down -- One man against a stone-walled city of sin. For centuries those walls have been a-building; Smooth porphyry, they slope and coldly glass The flying storm and wheeling sun. No chink, No crevice lets the thinnest arrow in. He fights alone, and from the cloudy ramparts A thousand evil faces gibe and jeer him. Let him lie down and die: what is the right, And where is justice, in a world like this? But by and by, earth shakes herself, impatient; And down, in one great roar of ruin, crash Watch-tower and citadel and battlements. When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO W.E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS by SCUDDER MIDDLETON JANE ADDAMS by RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL SLOW -- SLOW -- SLOW -- SLOW by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER JANE ADDAMS by GWENDOLYN BROOKS BOOKER T. AND W.E.B. by DUDLEY RANDALL FIVE BLACK MEN by MARGARET ABIGAIL WALKER W.E.B. DUBOIS AT HARVARD by JAY WRIGHT A MORNING THOUGHT by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL |
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