Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BARRIERS, by ELLINOR L. NORCROSS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BARRIERS, by                    
First Line: O, I would never, never dare
Last Line: Out from her heart, leaving it bare.
Subject(s): Children; Marriage; Relationships; Childhood; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


O, I would never, never dare
To marry you for fear I'd bear
You children I should always hate --
They'd be so proper and sedate,
And suck their thumbs with solemn air
As if habitually at prayer,
And look at me with grave, round eyes
Tearing aside life's thin disguise.

You'd fear my children too, I know
(You would not hate, you're not made so)
They'll be such little slim, brown things
With much of hoofs and some of wings.
And when they'd run along the wind
Out where the stars stand cold and thinned
You'd call them in and shut the door
And stand them on your study floor.

If it were we -- I love you so
I would stay with you even though
Your prim, decorous saintly ways
Maddened me through all our days;
But every sun flecked path I know
Would call my children till they'd go.
And woodsmoke on a mountain trail
Would lead them like a Holy Grail.

So I must choose a brown hill lad
While life and love are young and glad,
We'll climb the heights like small brown elves
And have the world quite to ourselves.
And you must wed a Raphael maid
Incurious, sweet and unafraid
Of all the things that you will tear
Out from her heart, leaving it bare.





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