Somber Autumnal Poems

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One of the things I love about the season is a return to some of the splendid poems of early youth, but also returns to some like the excerpt below, that came in later studies. See here for the complete poem.

from "Ode to the Confederate Dead"
Alan Tate

What shall we who count our days and bow
Our heads with a commemorial woe
In the ribboned coats of grim felicity,
What shall we say of the bones, unclean,
Whose verdurous anonymity will grow?
The ragged arms, the ragged heads and eyes
Lost in these acres of the insane green?
The gray lean spiders come, they come and go;
In a tangle of willows without light
The singular screech-owl's tight
Invisible lyric seeds the mind
With the furious murmur of their chivalry.

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1 Comments

Good stuff. I should read more of this Alan Tate.

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on October 19, 2004 7:11 AM.

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