Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AS ONE HAVING A GREAT INHERITANCE, by ZELDA F. MELTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AS ONE HAVING A GREAT INHERITANCE, by                    
First Line: I said to my soul I would take
Last Line: Perhaps it's elizabeth ...?
Subject(s): Inheritance And Succession


I said to my Soul I would take
Nor question the whence nor how,
I scorned the Parson's Heaven and Hell;
I would live Here and Now.
I mocked at Life, and I scoffed at Love—
(Love passing, scars left deep)
I said 'twere better to laugh and die
Than to live long and weep.

But I had not reckoned the blood that fed
The poor, bruised heart of me,
Nor visioned the strength of that crimson thread
That could live for a century.
I had not counted my mother, Elois,
As pure as a lily's breath;
Nor my grandmother, Constance, stately and good;
Nor the one named Elizabeth;
Nor the one who had mothered a bishop son,
Whose blood flows in my veins.
How could I know that the virtue of them
Bound me with forged chains?
How could I know that their dear, dead hands
Would reach and draw me back
Their child—in spite of the grave itself
Into the beaten track?

I'm teaching the "Corner" school again
And I sing in the Methodist choir,
And I'm stroking a cat with topaz eyes
As I sit and write by my fire.
Yet, if "Teacher" is good (as the children say)
Freely I here confess,
It is not I who am good at all—
Perhaps it's Elizabeth ...?





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