Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LAMENT, by                    
First Line: How all the garden throbs with memory
Last Line: Accessible as god, when sought in prayer.
Subject(s): Lament


How all the garden throbs with memory
Of things once seen or felt or done before;
How repetition fills the treasury
That seemingly was empty of its store.
The spring, approaching slowly, calls to life
The bulbs we planted with such anxious care
And every tree and blade of grass is rife
With palpitating eagerness to share
The transitory joy of growing things.
The lofty house we built for aerial birds
Is now a Babel tower of tongues and wings.
Around me, even mute things strive for words
To make articulate the gnawing pain
Of knowing you will not walk here again.

The last bright leaf has gone its gentle way
Upon a merciless, autumnal gale;
And where the bee and dragonfly held sway,
The frost has left its devastating trail.
Where petalled roses showed their stainless hearts
Brown, thorny stalks now pierce the biting air
To prick the memory until it smarts
With loneliness that goes beyond despair.
For well I know that Nature will replace
The vernal beauty claimed by seasons' law,
But not one line or mark of your dear face
Can any power persuade her to withdraw
From that mysterious oblivion --
Beyond the warming reaches of the sun.

Now softly muffling snow fills all the air
And blurs the rigid lines that form your grave;
So time descends as softly on you there
Obliterating what it freely gave.
The years will blot you from the thoughts of men --
All things conspire to make the world forget;
As well, for dead men are beyond the ken
Of human contact, human love, and yet --
In all things the discerning mind can trace
The soul's essential substance, light as breath,
An incandescent power, in endless space,
Soaring above the tomb, immune to death.
And so I sense your presence everywhere,
Accessible as God, when sought in prayer.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net