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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TIME, by FLORENCE EARLE COATES First Line: What thought can measure time? Last Line: Losing themselves in one, unbourned eternity! Subject(s): Time | |||
What thought can measure Time? -- Tell its beginning, name The void from which it first, faint-pulsing came? -- Follow its onward going -- A restless river without tumult flowing -- Or with sure footing climb Unto its unlit altitudes sublime? What thought can trace the wonders it hath seen -- Time, the creator of all that hath been, Giver of bounty where was dearth, Bringer of miracles to birth: Time through whose office is the seedling sown, The fruit upgathered, the ripe harvest mown, And beauty made to glorify the earth? Before the land took shape and rose Black and chaotic from the old, old sea, Before the stars their courses chose, Before the moon's most ancient memory, Time to Earth's vision, veiled in night, appears Back of the viewless cycles of the years. The Hours, his little children, run Lightly upon his errands ever; By sure and swift relays is done His will, disputed never; The while these transient Hours infirm Measure of mortal things the destined term. Ah, me, the days! the heavy-weighted years, Each with its Spring and Winter, dusk and dawn! The centuries, with all their joys, their tears, That came, and now -- so utterly are gone! Gone whither? whither vanished so? Does broad Orion, or does Hesper know? There comes no answer. Are we dupes, indeed -- Offspring of Time, by Time relentless slain, Our purest aspirations dreamed in vain? Ah, no: man's soul indignant doth disdain Ignoble vassalage to such a creed, Well knowing it is free -- Aye, free! -- for present, past, and future blend, The segments of a circle without end, Losing themselves in one, unbourned Eternity! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEVEN EYES: FINAL SECTION by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: COME OCTOBER by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: HOME by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN SLOWLY: I FREQUENTLY SLOWLY WISH by LYN HEJINIAN ALL THE DIFFICULT HOURS AND MINUTES by JANE HIRSHFIELD A DAY IS VAST by JANE HIRSHFIELD FROM THIS HEIGHT by TONY HOAGLAND A NARROW WINDOW by FLORENCE EARLE COATES |
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