ONE whined, O why into this wide and lonely World am I cast, hearing no voice but my own? One sighed, Why should my misery be added To miseries of a world so frozen-hearted? Another groaned, Damnation take these whiners, That will not let a man enjoy his griefs. And one, Be dumb, sad egotists, and let me wake Rebellion and rebellion and rebellion. And one snarled indistinct, a chatter of syllables Meaning nothing but hunger, anger or pain. Another shrilled, Lord, 'tis a heavenly morning: Voices I hear a-chiding, but they mingle Their small pathetic notes until I laugh; While another piped, making an antiphonal Mirth of simple voices and brimming echoes. So sounded the tawny pebbles as we skimmed them Across the frozen ponds from either side, And sped the waking babblers each to other. Tough roots of firs and birches held the ice-ponds Sunken in a brown bowl, that made one voice A score, and all the voices like the tangle Of voices in a wood of April buds. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE COLD NIGHT by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS FIVE KERNELS OF CORN [APRIL, 1622] by HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH DOUGLASS by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE SNOW-STORM by RALPH WALDO EMERSON MAY (1) by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI QUATORZAINS: 11. A CLOCK STRIKING AT MIDNIGHT by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE GHOSTS' MOONSHINE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: HER NAME LIBERTY by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |