Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE LIBRARY; SUNG AT OPENING OF THE HAVERHILL LIBRARY, by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Let there be light!' god spake of old Last Line: The lords of thought await our call! Subject(s): Haverhill, Massachusetts; Libraries & Librarians | ||||||||
"LET THERE BE LIGHT!" God spake of old, And over chaos dark and cold, And through the dead and formless frame Of nature, life and order came. Faint was the light at first that shone On giant fern and mastodon, On half-formed plant and beast of prey, And man as rude and wild as they. Age after age, like waves, o'erran The earth, uplifting brute and man; And mind, at length, in symbols dark Its meanings traced on stone and bark. On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll, On plastic clay and leathern scroll, Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed, And lo! the Press was found at last! Then dead souls woke; the thoughts of men Whose bones were dust revived again; The cloister's silence found a tongue, Old prophets spake, old poets sung. And here, to-day, the dead look down; The kings of mind again we crown; We hear the voices lost so long, The sage's word, the sibyl's song. Here Greek and Roman find themselves Alive along these crowded shelves; And Shakespeare treads again his stage, And Chaucer paints anew his age. As if some Pantheon's marbles broke Their stony trance, and lived and spoke, Life thrills along the alcoved hall, The lords of thought await our call! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...UNDER SORACTE by KENNETH REXROTH BOARDING: 4. INDEPENDENCE by REETIKA VAZIRANI AFTER THE SPEECH TO THE LIBRARIANS by DAVID WAGONER THE LIBRARY SPEAKS by ELIZABETH WELTON LUMPKIN THE PLUTE'S LIBRARY by WALT MASON AN ODE ADDRESSED TO MR. JOHN ROUSE, LIBRARIAN ... by JOHN MILTON IN A LIBRARY; QUATRAIN by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON AMY WENTWORTH; FOR WILLIAM BRADFORD by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |
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