 | Peace and other poems |  |
78
SUCCORY
Many a summer have I trode
This familiar homely road;
Many a summer have I seen
You, your stalks of wiry green,
Wide rosettes of tenderest blue
As the very skies looked through;
Every passing chariot leaves
Dust upon your wrinkled leaves;
Strong you play your ceaseless part,
Tough of frame but true of heart;
You are safe; your fibred strands
Disenchant the tender hands,
Tender hands that spoil and slay,
Pull, and smell, and cast away.
This familiar homely road;
Many a summer have I seen
You, your stalks of wiry green,
Wide rosettes of tenderest blue
As the very skies looked through;
Every passing chariot leaves
Dust upon your wrinkled leaves;
Strong you play your ceaseless part,
Tough of frame but true of heart;
You are safe; your fibred strands
Disenchant the tender hands,
79
Pull, and smell, and cast away.
Flower of ancient ancestry,
Generations pass you by;
Man who boasts of high descent,
Sire and grandsire eminent,
Is a puny parvenu,
Budding flower, compared with you.
Year by year you wax and rise
Underneath the glowing skies,
Year by year your life is bound
Sinking languid under-ground;
Who that marks you cannot see
How you love to bloom and be?
And your thoughtless summer bliss,
Herb of glory, tells me this.
Generations pass you by;
Man who boasts of high descent,
Sire and grandsire eminent,
Is a puny parvenu,
Budding flower, compared with you.
Year by year you wax and rise
Underneath the glowing skies,
Year by year your life is bound
Sinking languid under-ground;
Who that marks you cannot see
How you love to bloom and be?
And your thoughtless summer bliss,
Herb of glory, tells me this.
80
'Twas a Loving Heart that bade you
Catch your hue from skies above you;
And the Heart unwearied, free,
Ancient, wise, that bade you be,
Did not wish you ill, who made you;
Wished me well, who look and love you.
Catch your hue from skies above you;
And the Heart unwearied, free,
Ancient, wise, that bade you be,
Did not wish you ill, who made you;
Wished me well, who look and love you.
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