RPO -- Trumbull Stickney : And, the Last Day Being Come, Man Stood Alone

Trumbull Stickney (1874-1904)

And, the Last Day Being Come, Man Stood Alone

1And, the last day being come, Man stood alone

2Ere sunrise on the world's dismantled verge,

3Awaiting how from everywhere should urge

4The Coming of the Lord. And, behold, none

5Did come, -- but indistinct from every realm

6Of earth and air and water, growing more

7And louder, shriller, heavier, a roar

8Up the dun atmosphere did overwhelm

9His ears; and as he looked affrighted round

10Every manner of beast innumerable

11All thro' the shadows crying grew, until

12The wailing was like grass upon the ground.

13Asudden then within his human side

14Their anguish, since the goad he wielded first,

15And, since he gave them not to drink, their thirst,

16Darted compressed and vital. -- As he died,

17Low in the East now lighting gorgeously

18He saw the last sea-serpent iris-mailed

19Which, with a spear transfixèd, yet availed

20To pluck the sun down into the dead sea.

Notes

12] "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." (Rev. 1.7)

15] "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." (Rev. 21.6)

18] Recalling the legend of St. and the dragon, symbolizing the devil. See also Rev. 12.3, 20.2-3.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: The Poems of Trumbull Stickney, ed. George Cabot Lodge, William Vaughn Moody, and John Ellerton Lodge (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1905): 175 (no. IX of "Later Lyrics"). PS 3537 T525 1905 Robarts Library.
First publication date: 1905
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/14

Composition date: October 1902
Rhyme: abba

Other poems by Trumbull Stickney