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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AGE, by OSIP EMILYEVICH MANDELSTAM Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: My age, my beast, to whom will it be given Alternate Author Name(s): Mandelshtam, Osip Emilievich | |||
My beast, my age, who will try to look you in the eye, and weld the vertebrae of century to century, with blood? Creating blood pours out of mortal things: only the parasitic shudder, when the new world sings. As long as it still has life, the creature lifts its bone, and, along the secret line of the spine, waves foam. Once more life's crown, like a lamb, is sacrificed, cartilage under the knife - the age of the new-born. To free life from jail, and begin a new absolute, the mass of knotted days must be linked by means of a flute. With human anguish the age rocks the wave's mass, and the golden measure's hissed by a viper in the grass. And new buds will swell, intact, the green shoots engage, but your spine is cracked my beautiful, pitiful, age. And grimacing dumbly, you writhe, look back, feebly, with cruel jaws, a creature, once supple and lithe, at the tracks left by your paws. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: IPPOLIT KONOVALOFF by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SOMETHING BEYOND by MARY CLEMMER AMES HUDSON AN ORCHARD AT AVIGNON by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM by HENRY KIRKE WHITE IMPROMPTU ON CHARLES II (2) by JOHN WILMOT PASTEL by MARSDON GILFORD ALBRITTON IF I GROW OLD by ETHEL BERRY ALLEN |
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