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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
EXILE, by RICHARD ALDINGTON Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: How shall we utter | |||
How shall we utter This horror, this rage, this despair? How shall we strike at baseness, Cut through disgust with scorn? How rend with slashed fingers The bars and walls of their lives Which blacken our air and pure light? What are they? Alien, brutish, Base seed of Earth's ravished womb; Shall we yield our light and our truth- The flash of the helm And the foam-grey eyes and the hair Braided with gold, Steel mail on a firm breast? Shall we yield? Their life, their truth? O laugh of disdain! If ours be a goddess, Chaste, proud, and austere; What is theirs? A boastful woman, a whore, Whose vice is most stupid, most foul; One greasy of flesh, stale With hot musty perfume- While ours- Firm-fleshed as the treeless hills With her rigid breasts and hard thighs, Cold and perfect and fresh- Fields crisp with new frost- Sets the violet-crown in her hair, Turns an unstained brow to the sky. Let us stand by the earth-shaking sea Unfurrowed by a hull, Let us move among beeches and oaks Unprofaned by loud speech; Let us reverence the sacred earth And the roar of unbridled falls And the crash of an untamed sea, Let us shade our eyes from the sun And gaze through the fluttering leaves Far, most far; Shall we see her hill And the marble front of her house And herself, standing calm, Many-coloured, triumphant, austere? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM by RICHARD ALDINGTON IN THE TRENCHES by RICHARD ALDINGTON VICARIOUS ATONEMENT by RICHARD ALDINGTON IMAGES: 1 by RICHARD ALDINGTON IMAGES: 2 by RICHARD ALDINGTON IMAGES: 3 by RICHARD ALDINGTON IMAGES: 4 by RICHARD ALDINGTON IMAGES: 5 by RICHARD ALDINGTON IMAGES: 6 by RICHARD ALDINGTON |
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