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Title: This Was The Song
Author: Helen Hay Whitney [
More Titles by Whitney]
We have forgotten. This the rowers knew,
Straining within the galleys' reeling night.
Life bent to breaking, while their great souls grew
Strong in the ancient purposes of Time.
This was the song whereby they made their fight,
Laughed as they swung. Gods! how the cord bit through!
This was the song the pagan lovers heard,
Wakened by flowers in a rose-red dawn.
Through the bright dew they fled, like ocean stirred
With morning. Bare and beautiful they ran,
Holding each other's hand. Through leaves they're gone,
Cleaving the silver pool with flash of bird.
Carven in stone, Abydos holds it fast--
The little Eastern dancer with her lute,
Wild Erin's faeries crying for the past.
They keep the deathless secret of the word
Hid behind Nature's lips, who, grave, remote,
Guard this from profanation till the last.
Not unto us who bide the ebb and flow,
The senseless order of the tide of law.
We have forgotten to be free; we know
Only the iteration of the day.
The priceless moon, white pearl without a flaw,
Drowns in the muddy stream of worldly woe.
We take the petty part and leave the whole.
Lost to our ken the song of Nature's youth--
The great barbaric winds that sweep the soul
And leave it emptied of all else but truth.
[The end]
Helen Hay Whitney's poem: This Was The Song
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