With shirt burst open wide, it stands, maned as Beethoven's bust, and tight holds the chessmen in upturned hands dream and conscience, love and night. A certain ebony king: in rage, anguished, still prepares for doom the world, a warrior engaged in riding the pawn-plodders down. In gardens where from cellars of ice the stars in fragrance rise again, (a nightingale in Isolde's vine) chokes Tristan's freezing-throb of pain. Pools, gardens, palings, in their fashion -- seethed with white tears, the whole great span of things -- are only types of passion hoarded by the heart of man. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CAMPUS SONNET: RETURN - 1917 by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET SPECIAL EFFECTS by JAMES GALVIN TRIFLE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON CITIES OF THE PLAIN by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: EDITH CONANT by EDGAR LEE MASTERS NOTHING WILL CURE THE SICK LION BUT TO EAT AN APE' by MARIANNE MOORE TO THE PEACOCK OF FRANCE by MARIANNE MOORE |