EARTH-BORN
by: Odell Shepard (1884-1967)
- O lapidary's
heaven, no brazier's hell for me,
- For I am made of dust and dew and stream and plant and tree:
- I'm close akin to boulders, I am cousin to the mud,
- And all the winds of all the sky make music in my blood.
-
- I want a brook and pine trees; I want a storm to blow
- Loud-lunged across the looming hills, with driven sleet and
snow.
- Don't put me off with diadems and thrones of chrysoprase;
- I want the winds of northern nights and wild March days.
-
- My blood runs red with sunset, my body is white with rain,
- And on my heart auroral skies have set their scarlet stain,
- My thoughts are green with springtime, and in the meadow-rue
- I think my very soul is growing green and gold and blue.
-
- What will be left I wonder, when death has washed me clean
- Of dust and dew and sundown and April's virgin green?
- If there's enough to make a ghost, I'll bring it back again
- To the little lovely earth that bore me, body, soul, and
brain.
"Earth-Born" is reprinted
from Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1916. Ed. William
Stanley Braithwaite. New York: Laurence J. Gomme, 1916. |
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