Share:
  Guess poet | Poets | Poets timeline | Isles | Contacts

Allen Tate - EmblemsAllen Tate - Emblems
Work rating: Low


I Maryland, Virginia, Caroline Pent images in sleep Clay valleys rocky hills old fields of pine Unspeakable and deep Out of that source of time my farthest blood Runs strangely to this day Unkempt the fathers waste in solitude Under the hills of clay Far from their woe fled to its thither side To a river in Tennessee In an alien house I will stay Yet find their breath to be All that my stars betide- There some time to abide Took wife and child with me, II When it is all over and the blood Runs out, do not bury this man By the far river (where never stood His fathers) flowing to the West, But take him East where life began. my brothers, there is rest In the depths of an eastward river That I can understand; only Do not think the truth we hold I hold the slighter for this lonely Reservation of the heart: Men cannot live forever But they must die forever So take this body at sunset To the great stream whose pulses start In the blue hills, and let These ashes drift from the Long Bridge Where only a late gull breaks That deep and populous grave. III By the great river the forefathers to beguile Them, being inconceivably young, carved out Deep hollows of memory on a river isle Now lost-their murmur the ghost of a shout In the hollows where the forefathers Without beards, their faces bright and long, Lay down at sunset by the cool river In the tall willows amid birdsong; And the long sleep by the cool river They`ve slept full and long, till now the air Waits twilit for their echo; the burning shiver Of August strikes like a hawk the crouching hare.
Source

The script ran 0.001 seconds.