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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PEAT CUTTING, by WILLIAM RENTON First Line: There are no shadows on this shaggy moor Last Line: As through a lung communion with their kind. | |||
There are no shadows on this shaggy moor, But breaks darker than shadow where the peat Glooms unresisting from the level heath. For while no rampart rises from the plain, Dark fosses show; and slenderer crannies lurk, Refrains of these dark steeps, and give the tone To those dusk patches and the heather brown. Blue-shirted in the midst one delver toils, Or seems to toil, with that uncertain port The toiler feigns luxuriously to wear To one who watches in repose from far. Women white-hooded trundle to and fro, One coming and one going, soundless barrows, Now empty and now laden with the clods Yon delver seems to cut or seems to lift Athwart the bank; and stow the sodden peats In rank, beside the ranks of peats abake That stand like bricks upon a brickfield ranged. A cart hard by the road-way stretches prone: And points to where his yokefellow afar -- So far he seems a part of yon far fell -- Grazes at will -- the solitary bond Between the silent toilers moving there And all the busy life unheard below. Nor he through them but they through him may breathe As through a lung communion with their kind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FORK OF THE ROAD by WILLIAM RENTON TO LADY ANNE HAMILTON by WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 14. AL-MUZAWWIR by EDWIN ARNOLD SONG OF AN ATOM by JOSEPHINE BARNETT SEPTEMBER by MAVIS CLARE BARNETT CLEVEDON VERSES: 7. NORTON WOOD (DORA'S BIRTHDAY) by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN THE COMPLAINT OF ANNELIDA TO FALSE ARCITE by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING LADY WITH A CAREER by NORMA JEAN BUNTING |
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