Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SOUTHERN FARM HOUSE, by ANDERSON M. SCRUGGS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SOUTHERN FARM HOUSE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hardened and sinewed by the summer sun
Last Line: And all their somber years of silent grief.
Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers


Hardened and sinewed by the summer sun,
Bronzed as the rusting corn that round it stands,
This old house looks with stolid eyes upon
The road that cuts a red gash through its lands.

Swelled with the seasons like a ripened pod,
Its sides bulge out where ribs of chimneys lean,
And not a flag of grass invades the yard
The foraging of fowls has burnished clean,

Cleaving the mid-day calm, a swirling cloud
Of dust that cloaks a car, goes by the door,
Flinging a silty snow upon the shroud
The cedar wears, -- then silence comes once more --

Silence the deeper for the distant lowing
Of cattle in some clover-cool recess,
And the soft monotone of chickens mowing
Across the barnyard's sandy barrenness.

This home is more than tawny stone and beam
And arid lawn that spares no valiant leaf;
Here is a people's heart, their brown hill dream,
And all their somber years of silent grief.





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