Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WILD ROSES AND MYRRH, by MINNIE FAEGRE KNOX


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WILD ROSES AND MYRRH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The prairie ocean rolled away
Last Line: To line the manger bed.
Subject(s): Convents; Nuns; Religion; Sisters; Women; Theology


The prairie ocean rolled away
To the rim of a turquoise bowl.
Wind-spun perfume on waves of heat
Aspired to a cloud-fleeced goal.
Three great black silent butterflies
Toiled, fluttering, in the field.
Behold,—the passing farmfolk said,
The Sisters cut their yield.
One tossed the hay upon the rack;
One drove the gentle team;
One reared a prairie pyramid
Against a wooden beam.

Their starched white wimples, closely bound,
Lay limp on dampened cheeks;
Athwart wide-streaming woolen veils
Perched hats with rain-warped peaks.
Blue gingham aprons could not hide
The swaying chains of beads,
Whose quick click-click was antiphone
To lark-song from the meads.

The youngest nun—kin to the rose
That flecked the greensward seas,
Wrought symmetries of flashing tines,
Like silver-shot green frieze.

She knelt to free her flowing hem
From clinging briar-thorn.
Like this, mayhap, the Virgin's robes
Trailed fresh-strewn hay one morn.
Then smiled the little cloister-maid
With reverence in her eyes,
As flashed a scene from far-off days
And distant Eastern skies.

Dear Sisters, they were women, too,
And such as we—she said—
Who gleaned sweet grass from sunlit plains
To line the manger bed.





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