Share this page :
Countee Cullen (30 May 1903 – 9 January 1946 / New York)
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Wise
Dead men are wisest, for they know
How far the roots of flowers go,
How long a seed must rot to grow.
Dead men alone bear frost and rain
On throbless heart and heatless brain,
And feel no stir of joy or pain.
Dead men alone are satiate;
They sleep and dream and have no weight,
To curb their rest, of love or hate.
Strange, men should flee their company,
Or think me strange who long to be
Wrapped in their cool immunity.
Read poems about / on: hate, alone, rain, sleep, dream, joy, pain, heart, love, flower
PoemHunter.com Updates
-
Autistic Pride Day
June 18
-
Happy Birthday Geoffrey Hill!
English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion
-
Happy Birthday George Essex Evans!
(1863-1909) Australian poet
-
World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
Theme 2013: Drought and water scarcity
Top 500 Poems
-
Phenomenal Woman
Maya Angelou
-
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
-
If You Forget Me
Pablo Neruda
-
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
-
Dreams
Langston Hughes
-
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
-
If
Rudyard Kipling
-
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
-
Invictus
William Ernest Henley
-
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
The one thing we dread, is the one thing that is inevitable, accept it, and you know peace.
This poem has more wisdom condensed in it than the Mahabharata.
Seems to me poet doesn't believe that one can learn the art of bearing pain and pleasure or life's dualities while alive as to think that only dead can understand this and be wise.
Countee Cullen is envious of the dead. Cullen dealt with pain of losing love ones at an early age. Dead man are the wisest because the dead is immune to human emotions that Cullen felt.