YE WHO have passed Death's haggard hills; and ye Whom trees that knew your sires shall cease to know And still stand silent:--is it all a show,-- A wisp that laughs upon the wall?--decree Of some inexorable supremacy Which ever, as man strains his blind surmise From depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes, Sphinx-faced with unabashed augury? Nay, rather question the Earth's self. Invoke The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-day Whose roots are hillocks where the children play; Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what yoke Those stars, his spray-crown's clustering gems, shall wage Their journey still when his boughs shrink with age. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NEGRO by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES LINCOLN by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL MONODY ON THE ASTOR HOUSE by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS OH, MOTHER DEAR! by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 11. LOVE WILL OUT by PHILIP AYRES THE MASACRE AT SCIO by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT TO A YOUNG LADY WHO ASKED ME TO WRITE SOMETHING ORIGINAL FOR HER ALBUM by THOMAS CAMPBELL AN ELEGY UPON THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY by THOMAS CAMPION |