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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
EPILOGUE, by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY Poet's Biography First Line: O god, author of song Last Line: To shape not all unworthy of the thee in me. | |||
O God, author of song And of the will to righteousness, Thee have I loved in guise of him, The golden-haired, the beautiful, The incense-tainted leader of the Nine, With dim, averted eyes and prescience of pain -- Knowing Thee frail and perishable, fit for youth. The gardens of the air were mine to walk with Thee, Dewed with the stars, Swept with the tinted splendors of the suns. Yet was the bliss too blissful to commend, And Thou, I knew, wert half divine, no more. Thro' the live luxury Of that aerial rapture always Crashed the vast battle sounds of earth, Where, tho' the many died, myself died not, Where, tho' the many bled, myself unwounded went. The pagan god, Thyself half-seen, Is not enough, O God! Here, on the breaking verge of youth, Secureless from the fringes of the forward storm, I face the riven grey and call to Thee, O God of righteousness, to Thee! Must I forswear song and the darling rapture, Thy gifts, tho' taintless of the earth, yet beautiful? And bend me to the living of the life, half-armed, Lacking not valiance, but the accoutrements wherewith Valiance may save itself from scorn? O God, hear Thou my faith which is as rock: Thou art! All else is circumstance, Random and unessential incident -- Save this: in me Thou art. And so my moment wheels to its sure end Huge with divinity, its orbit as the sun's, Accounted and accountable as all The chaos-floating, golden universe. But mine to mar; Mine to deliver unto death True to the disposition of its essence, Or in fulfillment bastard utterly. Eternal Thou; but I Swift-passing, in the passing powerful Myself to darken with deliberate choice. One life, but one, is mine. I would not have it pass Failing its high, potential utmost, A quivering of music-shaken strings -- no more. Giver of bliss and pain, of song and prayer, Thou God that dost demand Single allegiance of the soul that sees Thee dual only and at enmity -- Hearken my choice, my supplication hark. Tear out the rapture and the wings -- Take back thy gift of song -- Take, take the madness of the olive and the vine With all their ecstasies, unless they be Not oil for gleaming of the games and clustered gold, Not wine for leafy laughter of the feast, But aid and chrismed healing for the wounds Of them that smitten lie on that broad way Known to the dusty sandals from Samaria. Crush Thou, O God, the petalled crimson of my life, So Thou but mold the remnant clay To shape not all unworthy of the Thee in me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A BALLAD OF ST. SEBASTIEN by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY A BRITTANY LOVE SONG by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY A CANTICLE by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY A HUNGER SONG by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY A LITTLE PAGE'S SONG by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY A PAGE SINGS by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY A PAGE'S ROAD SONG by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY A SEA BALLAD by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY A SEA-BIRD by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY A VOLUNTEER'S GRAVE by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY |
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