THEY stand as still as shapes in bronze, great-bodied, pipe in mouth; A slant-stacked steamer trails the sky with smoke, against the South; Far out they watch the toiling tides that lift in crests of foam, Alert to glimpse the rippled stir where schools of bluefish roam; They seldom move, they seldom break the fancy of the eye That makes them seem a common part of earth and sea and sky. ... A space beyond, the bathing folk along a sandstrip run, And pasty-visaged city groups slouch shaded from the sun, And, of a sudden, as in dream, on either hand I see The crush and roar of modern lifeand Christ in Galilee! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DAT GAL O' MINE by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON IRELAND; WRITTEN FOR THE ART AUTOGRAPH DURING IRISH FAMINE by SIDNEY LANIER AGING TOGETHER by CLARENCE MAJOR SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: HENRY PHIPPS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TOWARD THE GULF; DEDICATED TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |