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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PSYCHOGENESIS, by MABEL STANDLEY MARSTON First Line: When the hand of fate shook the family tree Last Line: "for they tell me ""I'm captain of my soul." Subject(s): Ancestry & Ancestors | |||
When the hand of Fate shook the family tree, A little too much fell on me. For the facts that came in that awful fall Reveal me not myself at all. I cannot say that I'm reconciled For I'm not, all told, my mother's child. I have father's walk and laugh like him. But I run, they say, like Uncle Jim. My grandmother says, and she seems to know, I smile and wink like her cousin Joe, That I carve my meat like her Uncle Sam. Tell me, someone, who I am. Shade of my fathers, shadow or ghost, If I become great I must not boast. On the other hand, if I go wrong, To whom, oh please, does the sin belong? Virtues and vices, cut, dried on the shelf. And I wanted so much to be myself. Aside from all this, the rule is set That "I am a part of all I have met." Nature and nurture, behavior acquired, They have all tuned in, I am duly wired. But something within me says I am free, As I run from the shade of that ancestral tree. So I'll answer "Here" to Gabriel's roll For they tell me "I'm captain of my soul." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ANCESTOR, ANCESTOR by ANNE WALDMAN ISIS by FREDERIC ROWLAND MARVIN THE SPARK FROM THE ENGINE by JANET B. MONTGOMERY MCGOVERN RED HILLS AND SKY by JANE MILLER HERITAGE by ROSELLE MERCIER MONTGOMERY ON BEING AN ANCESTRESS (TO MY GREAT-GREAT, GRANDCHILDREN) by ROSELLE MERCIER MONTGOMERY ISRAEL'S HERITAGE by IDA GOLDSMITH MORRIS |
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