Stuck in my head

You know how music gets stuck in some people's heads? Poetry gets stuck in mine. Many, many years ago, I heard a poem used at the close of an epic (read "miniseries") movie, probably in the 1970s. I want to say it was James A. Mischener's _Centenial_, but I can't be sure. I just remember the impact the poem had on me at the end of this epic film and how even as the words were uttered by the narrator, they burned into my brain, and without even any attempt to memorize this poem, it has stayed with me for way more than 30 years.

This poem has popped into my head a number of times in the past week and I don't know why, and it's apropos of nothing really, so I can't figure out what originally triggered it or why it keeps coming back. So as they say with songs, the trick to get rid of them is to sing the song in its entirety to break the loop. Here's hoping it works for poems. Here's the poem. It was written by Algernon Charles Swinburne and is entitled:


Garden of Prosperine

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.