Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash; And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh. Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads. Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth, Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death. For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple. There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple; And God will grow no talons at his heels, Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ODE TO BEAUTY by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THE WILLOWS by FRANCIS BRET HARTE TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTHER by THOMAS HOOD TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN: THE THIRD DAY: SCANDERBERG by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW DOVE RIVER ANTHOLOGY, BY OWN WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: LUCY GRAY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS THE VOYAGE; TO MAXIME DU CAMP by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE THWARTED UTTERANCE by WILLIAM ROSE BENET |