Breath

Breath

Original Text
Don Marquis, The Awakening and Other Poems (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page, 1925): 62. PS 3525 A797 A94 Robarts Library
1We are the shaken slaves of Breath:
2For logic leaves the race unstirred;
3But cadence, and the vibrant word,
4Are lords of life, are lords of death.
5Not facts nor reasons absolute
6May touch the crowd's composite soul,
7But rhythm, and the drum's long roll,
8The orator, the arrowy flute.
9The gods mixed music with our clay …
11Move in the running blood of man,
12His tidal moods they mete and sway.
13Song more endures than steel or stone ….
14Sandalled with magic syllables
15We glide like shades through shadowy hells,
16Or soar to heaven on a tone.

Notes

10] Odin: Norse god, Woden the creator. Krishna: the Hindu god of fire and the incarnation of Vishnu. Pan: Roman god of shepherds and inventor of the flute. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2003
Rhyme
Form