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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO LIVES. PART 1: 12 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: NOW EACH NEW WARNING DIED WITH ITS FIRST VOICE
Last Line: WHEN GOD HAS TAMPERED WITH THE INSTRUMENT.

Now each new Warning died with its first voice,
A phantom, a shrill echo, slain at birth
Upon the threshold of the House of Mirth:
For Warnings came, but yet there was no choice;
No choice forevermore! New Warnings came;
But came too late: Her dear sweet random ways
Would more and more reveal their tragic phase
(As of a candle with unsteady flame,
Through fierce combustion of uncouth element) --
Proving that love itself, though it can put
Light in the eyeball, swiftness in the foot,
Cannot restring, within its choral tent,
The mind 'twould play on (as a lyre or lute),
When God has tampered with the instrument.



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