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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO LIVES. PART 2: 22 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: THE COSMIC RHYTHMS HAVE OLD RIGHT OF WAY
Last Line: BECAUSE ('TIS ALL WE KNOW), BECAUSE THEY ARE.

The Cosmic Rhythms have old right of way,
And roll through man as through the heaving sea:
Should the moon stop above us just for me,
Because I neared the Valley of Death that day?
Should the Great Mother mercifully delay, --
As satiate with ten million women's pine, --
Delay her workings on this one of mine,
Because my wife in grief, in madness lay,
Already stricken? -- Onward still and on
The Cosmic Rhythms roll; I've felt, I've thought,
And I have mated man and star and sun
As of one pulse, one breath, one being wrought,
With gain and loss alike for sun, man, star --
Because ('tis all we know), because they are.



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