The task is done. The student look Bends anxiously to a newer book, Where the torn and blotted page runs red, And each stamped line runs stark with dead, As a world's wounds gape in agony And the spent current drips out slenderly. And the new task waits where fire-lit lands Wait sore the touch of master hands; Wait sore the spirit of Galilee, The Master's touch and sympathy. The new task, masters. Yours to be Of the world-work; chrism of agony Or the spirit's touch and sympathy, Till dreams lift fair over dumb, charred lands— Fabric that speaks of master hands— Till the page glows white where the page runs red, With the stars' requiem for the line's stark dead, And the blue bends hushed, brave and comforted. This the task, O masters new-panoplied, By the touch of the Master sanctified. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONGS IN ABSENCE: 7. THE SHIP by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH THE JOURNEY ONWARDS by THOMAS MOORE ODES: BOOK 2: ODE 4. TO THE HON. CHARLES TOWNSHEND, IN THE COUNTRY by MARK AKENSIDE GROWTH by MILDRED TELFORD BARNWELL A NEW PILGRIMAGE: 13 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT A NEW PILGRIMAGE: 29 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT AN ELEGY ON THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF THOMAS AYLEWORTH, SLAIN AT CROYDON by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |