"And I believe in the spurred flame, / Those racing tongues, but cannot come / Out of my heart's unbroken room."
— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)
Author
Work Title
Date
1959
Metaphor
"And I believe in the spurred flame, / Those racing tongues, but cannot come / Out of my heart's unbroken room."
Metaphor in Context
The starched unbending candles stir
As though a wind had caught their hair,
As though the surging of a host
Had charged the air of Pentecost.
And I believe in the spurred flame,
Those racing tongues, but cannot come
Out of my heart's unbroken room;
Nor feel the lips of fire among
The cold light and the chilling song,
The broken mouths that spill their hoard
Of prayer like beads on to a board.
(p. 9, ll. 1-11)
As though a wind had caught their hair,
As though the surging of a host
Had charged the air of Pentecost.
And I believe in the spurred flame,
Those racing tongues, but cannot come
Out of my heart's unbroken room;
Nor feel the lips of fire among
The cold light and the chilling song,
The broken mouths that spill their hoard
Of prayer like beads on to a board.
(p. 9, ll. 1-11)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Hill, Geoffrey. Somewhere is Such a Kingdom: Poems, 1952-1971 Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975.
Date of Entry
11/24/2010
