Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EARTH, by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EARTH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Earth, let me speak to you
Last Line: Finds the faint evening star.
Subject(s): Earth; World


I

Earth, let me speak to you,
Earth, let me listen to you;
Patient, brooding, melancholy;
Earth of many harvests.

Earth, let me rest upon you,
Earth, let me sleep upon you,
Deep, dark-bosomed mother,
Shaper of my life.

Mother of the grass
That grows and is mown in a season,
Mother of the tree
That abides for a hundred years in strength;

Mother of the man
Whose years fall swiftly as the grass,
Whose spirit stands yet as a tree
Unshattered by the gales;

Womb out of which I emerged,
Grave into which I must enter,
Hear me, mother of my song;
Give reply.

In the splendor of the morning
Hear my question:
"Why are not men made as Gods
That they may know the beauty of the earth?"

In the weariness of evening
Answer low:
"I am the ultimate mistress,
I open wide my arms that all may come."

II

Earth of bright harvest fields,
Rich, firm-breasted, fertile, yielding
Golden grain and gleaming flowers,
Song-birds, butterflies;

Orchard-bearing earth,
Chastely beautiful in the spring;
After the dense, dull showers of summer,
Glowing in pride, mature;

Flaming with scarlet fruit,
Heavy, firm, and sweet to the taste;
Glowing with wild berries
Sharp and bitter;

You are the giver of all life,
Bountiful, fruitful, worn with years,
Offering your body up
Still to the casual sun;

You are the grave that awaits me,
The peace that is greater than life's peace,
The curtain of silence that falls
Upon the close of the play.

III

Earth of dark battlefields,
Red-soaked burnt earth, crumbling, barren,
Earth under which the armies burrowed
As into living tombs;

Earth that is slashed and rent;
Shell-gouged, trench-torn, bruised, and battered,
Earth that is desolate,
A stark and horrible shape.

Weedy, forsaken earth,
Stagnant with scummy, rotting pools,
Earth where nothing flourishes
But the rat, the hawk, the crow;

You are the grave of my hopes,
You are the sterile harlot
Kissing me with the fierce kisses of death
That eat my lips and eyes;

You are the mother of new life,
Torn with the pangs of a monstrous birth,
The unforgettable shame
Through which we men renew.

IV

Dust returns to the dust,
And spirit goes back into spirit;
Who speaks with the tongue of the earth,
Earth only can set him free.

Of me the winds shall speak
When they cry with half-human voices,
For me the rains shall complain
In their long fallings;

Through me the stars shall burn bright
Over desolate ruined cities;
Through me new cities shall rise,
Fair as the ones in my dreams.

My tears have dropped on the earth,
And the earth has received them.
My voice has called out to the earth,
Earth's silence will answer my speech.

My years turn to seaward now,
A river of sorrows, burdened, dark;
Fed by the clouds and tempests
Of other years.

I have buried my hopes in the earth,
As a man robbed of all but one treasure
Hides that away
In the hills;

I have looked far away to the future,
As a man who at sunset peers
Into the cloudy, smouldering west
Finds the faint evening star.





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