Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


VENEER by FRANK WILMOT

First Line: HOW SLOW, FRIGHTFULLY SLOW, MOVES THE WHITE MIND
Last Line: BRUTE BARKS TO BRUTE, AND FURY BLACKS THE SUN.

HOW slow, frightfully slow, moves the White Mind
Of God into this pagan body of man's!
Ashes of ritual, old lusts and ranns
Die slower than the rocks the oceans grind.
Die hard, but die. Yet they in tombs confined
Stir stealthily; and, when wild memory fans
Their dust to flame, War's red barbarians
Blast the white throne of peaceful gods and kind.
Out from old ways of travail and deep harm
Work and high dreams have guided us and none
But knows the calm of the protected height.
But frail these barriers! At some alarm
Fear drags us back where, with Apollyon might,
Brute barks to brute, and fury blacks the sun.



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