I have preserved the flowers that you gave
In lines of verse as precious as the day
On which you gave them now they are dry as
The ink on paper thin on which they lay
These words will last as we and they do pass
And faith in words keeps bitter death away
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While you’re loving on TS Eliot, I suggest you take up his small volume Christianity and Culture, which excoriates secularism, the principles of our Founding Fathers, and all compromise with vile religious liberty. God bless him!
No one seriously interested in Eliot would leave such a comment on a poem—and certainly not a poem so graceful and evocative. There’s a time and a place for those conversations; this isn’t it.
A very fine work, Mr Thornton-Norris. ‘Short poetry’ is incredibly difficult to write, especially in rhyme and meter. An exemplary piece. The Quarterly Review just published a poem dwelling on a similar theme (though in a strikingly different way) that you might enjoy:
http://www.quarterly-review.org/?p=2855
It’s wonderful to see fine verse on TIC, a medium, in retrospect, I’m surprised wasn’t utilized earlier. (Excepting, of course, the occasional, delightful pieces by Mr Masty.