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Sunday, July 19, 2020

Wood and Stones / John Cowper Powys


Wood and Stones

The silent trees above my head
     The silent pathway at my feet
Shame me when here I dare to tread
     Accompanied by thoughts unmeet.

"Alas!" they seem to say "have we
     In speechless patience travailed long
Only at last to bring forth thee,
     A creature void of speech or song ?

"Only in thee can Nature know
     Herself, find utterance and a tongue
To tell her rapture and her woe,
     And yet of her thou hast not sung.

"Thy mind with trivial notions rife
     Beholds the pomp of night and day,
The winds and clouds and seas at strife,
     Uncaring, and hath naught to say."

O Man, with destiny so great,
     With years so few to make it good,
Such fooling in the eyes of fate
     May well give speech to stones and wood!

~~
John Cowper Powys (1872-1963)
from Poems, 1899

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

John Cowper Powys biography

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