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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


IN FESTUBERT by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN

Poet Analysis

First Line: NOW EVERY THING THAT SHADOWY THOUGHT
Last Line: AND SEAR NO MORE WITH SECOND SIGHT.
Subject(s): WORLD WAR I; FIRST WORLD WAR;

Now every thing that shadowy thought
Lets peer with bedlam eyes at me
From alleyways and thoroughfares
Of cynic and ill memory
Lifts a gaunt head, sullenly stares,
Shuns me as a child has shunned
A whizzing dragonfly that daps
Above his mudded pond.

Now bitter frosts, muffling the morn
In old days, crunch the grass anew;
There where the floods made fields forlorn
The glinzy ice grows thicker through.
The pollards glower like mummies when
Thieves break into a pyramid,
Inscrutable as those dead men
With painted mask and balm-cloth hid;

And all the old delight is cursed
Redoubling present undelight.
Splinter, crystal, splinter and burst;
And sear no more with second sight.



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