I SAID to It: "We grasp not what you meant, (Dwelling down here, so narrowly pinched and pent) By crowning Death the King of the Firmament: -- The query I admit to be One of unwonted size, But it is put you sorrowingly, And not in idle-wise." "Sooth, since you ask me gravely," It replied, "Though too incisive questions I have decried, This shows some thought, and may be justified. I'll gauge its value as I go Across the Universe, And bear me back in a moment or so And say, for better or worse." Many years later, when It came again, "That matter an instant back which brought you pain," It said, "and you besought me to explain: Well, my forethoughtless modes to you May seem a shameless thing, But -- I'd no meaning, that I knew, In crowning Death as King!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CONQUEROR'S GRAVE by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT KU KLUX by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN THE OLD MEN ADMIRING THEMSELVES IN THE WATER by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS EVIL EASIER THAN GOOD by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TIMID THINGS by JOHN HAMPTON ATKINSON TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. THE WIND OF MAY by EDWARD CARPENTER |