Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN THE BLACK COUNTRY, by OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN THE BLACK COUNTRY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hell hath its uses; here each mortar mouth
Last Line: An earth of ashes and a sky of brass?
Alternate Author Name(s): Burke, Fielding
Subject(s): Skyscrapers; Staffordshire, England


Hell hath its uses; here each mortar mouth
Casts far as life some treasure dear to need;
Welcome to men as ships the fruity South
Sends to blown Arctic shores. These valleys bleed
That others may be fair. In greener shires,
Where glisten cots and byres,
Manors and castles, or where farther bide
Young Adam and his bride,
What aching wants are banished by these despot fires!

Let Ceres bring sweet incense and blow white
Yon furnace breath; for there flames leap to mould
Her shares and harrows, chains and mattocks bright;
There fashion eager blades that cut the gold
Of wide Australia's fields when flow and wane
Her Harvest tides of grain;
And forge for far brown hands the hoe and spade
To ruff some island glade,
Or, chance be, turn the mellow sod in Argentine.

Look to our left. Bolts, rivets, girders, beams,
That make our towers safe, too near the stars;
Rods, pillars, shafts, that bridge unchallenged streams,
Or bear a mountain's weight; unflinching bars
That time alone can bend; and fairy wire
For violin and lyre,
That shall from Music's heart stir her to break
Dream's silence, and remake
That silence deeper, -- all are born of that swift fire.

And there! Slack would the world go but for pins,
Needles and buttons. When we lost our fur,
Fishbone and threaded thorn helped us our sins
To hide again, and modesty relure
To walk with us. Now showering from here
To every port o' the sphere,
Go, tidying the world, slim bits of pointed sun,
And on the daintiest one
What maid at bridal thrift shall drop a happy tear?

Now where the cavern windows ghostly glow,
As a dead dragon's eyes yet open burn,
Stripped figures like strange beasts weave to and fro,
And suddenly we know how beasts must yearn
Who have no way out but to pass
Through fire to the green grass.
These strong, who for the weak make beauty sure,
How long will they endure
An earth of ashes and a sky of brass?





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