Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EARLY WILLOWS, by JAMES WREFORD WATSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EARLY WILLOWS, by                    
First Line: There is no bargain basement no
Last Line: At last will credit you.
Alternate Author Name(s): Wreford, James
Subject(s): Nature; Spring


There is no bargain basement no
last January sale shall get
a cut rate peace, a short cut to
relieve the mounting debt.

The corner drugstore noways can
both diagnose and salve the grief
that winters in the heart of man
despite the swiftly pushing leaf.

Too soon you paint the polder green,
signal the special express of Spring:
the steam's not up can save this year
from the death-dropping wing.

Too soon you flag the faltering hope,
or burnish up the pale desire,
thrust out the clenched fist and too soon
explode the marsh with fire.

Time shall not see you nest the song
or hold the purple eggs of love:
for war has still to glut the beak,
and peace has lost its dove.

Let not another green thing grow
the rivers row or the West Wind blow;
for the polar front has carried down
the latitude of snow.

In this cold sector shall no life
be won but to be waste again:
the rate of increase circles round
to swell the count of pain.

For what have aching root and branch
born this tremendous, tremulous leaf?
Shall not the profiteer produce
his silver from our grief?

And yet your spear-point protest shall
revoke the Chellean man who stands
above the thundering machine
with groping, stone-age hands;

cry irrepressible revolt
against the winter mind that yet
has not an end of winters made,
and in your dying fret

our snow-bound world with shadowed faith,
if with the premature the not less true
green of that far off common earth
at last will credit you.





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