The Poetical Works of George Barlow In Ten [Eleven] Volumes |
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 | The Poetical Works of George Barlow |  |
143
SONNET To L. Cranmer-Byng
Past and Future
Thou hast the whole dim past whereon to draw:
The past, with all its fury of sword-lit days,
Its bitter love matured in hidden ways,
Its nights whose secret joys the dead stars saw,
When giant passions knew no rein nor law.
For thee the past her chariot-wheels delays;
She opens murder's lone haunts to thy gaze;
She tells of love that pale gods watched with awe.
The past, with all its fury of sword-lit days,
Its bitter love matured in hidden ways,
Its nights whose secret joys the dead stars saw,
When giant passions knew no rein nor law.
For thee the past her chariot-wheels delays;
She opens murder's lone haunts to thy gaze;
She tells of love that pale gods watched with awe.
Man's past means rapturous crime and savage wrong:—
Round history's steps the bright blood foams and seethes,
And with that dew she tinges thy young wreaths;
Yet thine own history thou must write ere long:
Take all of weird strange power the past bequeaths,
But write thy drama not in blood, but song.
Round history's steps the bright blood foams and seethes,
And with that dew she tinges thy young wreaths;
Yet thine own history thou must write ere long:
Take all of weird strange power the past bequeaths,
But write thy drama not in blood, but song.
Oct. 22, 1894.
| The Poetical Works of George Barlow | |