Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FATHERLAND, by OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FATHERLAND, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Come fingered as a friend, o death!
Last Line: Where southern waters creep.
Alternate Author Name(s): Burke, Fielding
Subject(s): Nature


Come fingered as a friend, O Death!
Unfrock me, flesh and bone.
These frills of smile and moan,
These laces, traces, all unpin!
These veins that net me in,
This ever lassoing breath,
Remove from me,
If here is aught to free!

To know these hills, nor wait for feet!
O, Earth, to be thy child at last!
Thy roads all mine, and no white gate
Inevitably fast.

To enter where thy banquets are
When storms are called to feast;
And find thy hidden pantry stair
When Spring with thee would guest;

Into thine attic windows step
From humbled Himalays,
And round thy starry cornice creep
Waylaying deities!

Though for my hand
Space hold out spheres like roses, and
Like country lanes her orbits blow,
My Earth, I know,
If thou be green, and blossom still,
That I must downward go;
Leave stars to keep
House as they will;
The winds to walk or turn and sleep,
Seas to spare or kill;
Behind my back shall sunsets burn
Bereft of my concern;
Each wonder past
Shall feed my haste,
Till I have paused as now
Beneath a bending orchard bough, --
An April apple bough
Where southern waters creep.





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