Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONNETS: 3. MAN AND THE ELECTRIC THEORY by NEWMAN HOWARD

First Line: ARE THEN THE SOULS OF MEN AS MOONBEAMS LASHED
Last Line: DEATH DOFFS OUR ROBES; WE SLEEP; WE MAY NOT DIE!
Subject(s): DEATH; FATE; NATURE; SEA; SOUL; DEAD, THE; DESTINY; OCEAN;

ARE then the souls of men as moonbeams flashed
Momently on a dark unfathomed sea?
Starlets which glance, break, vanish, so are we,
Whose lives fly off like wheat-chaff, winnowed, thrashed,
Whirled from Fate's threshing-floor, -- Who unabashed
Mouth mighty words and plumb eternity
With ell-rod dogmas; whose philosophy
Through centuries reared, is in one decade dashed?

Yet if this visible universe conceals, --
Plane of a deeper solid, -- worlds which lie
Hid, and God's finger flashing through the sky
Unmasks all substance, then the soul that feels, --
All Space her mansion, -- Nature's stuff reveals:
Death doffs our robes; we sleep; we may not die!



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