I used to have a suit of clothes All rags and paint and dirt; What luxury it was to wear A suit I couldn't hurt! Secure within that wreck of cloth I grovelled on the ground; In garret, stable, garden, yard, Primeval bliss I found. It waxed familiar with the woods, The thickets, marshes, brooks; It carried rents and burrs and mud From all the forest nooks. I got down close to Mother Earth, My spirit seemed to root And spread its filaments and grow Within that mouldy suit. But ah, my wife, in vandal mood, One hapless cleaning day, In valiant fit of tidiness, Gave my old suit away! And now I weed the garden walks At length of formal hoe, And keep within the proper paths When to the woods I go. I've lost the sense of sweet, warm dirt, The kinship with the ground; I must be careful of my clothes Whene'er I tinker 'round. I do not own a single suit But claims my constant care, No shred of blessed cloth that I Obliviously wear. Before my oldest suit is fit For either work or fun, A solemn year -- at least a year -- Must circumspectly run. O woman, woman! prim and neat, The flower of humankind, I'd not abate your daintiness And purity of mind; But oh, with heavenly perfectness Your graces will be girt, If you will let a happy man Just wallow in the dirt! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: IMANUEL EHRENHARDT by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TO W.P.: 2 by GEORGE SANTAYANA AN ANCIENT PROVERB by WILLIAM BLAKE A HYMN; AFTER READING 'LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT' by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE FIFTEEN ACRES by JAMES STEPHENS FLORAL DECORATIONS FOR BANANAS by WALLACE STEVENS |