Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MORTAL GRAIN, by HORTENSE KING FLEXNER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MORTAL GRAIN, by                    
First Line: When from the narrow cage
Last Line: Its duplicate, awake, remembering pain.
Subject(s): Death; Mortality; Dead, The


When from the narrow cage
Where it has housed,
The soul creeps faint and light,
I think it will not be too soon aroused
To measure its new height,
Nor leave its prison in a shining rage.
For as the furrowed kernel lying cramped
In the nut's hard shell,
Bears the deep imprint of the outer case,
So shall the soul be stamped
With the harsh flesh, where in a scanty space,
By heaviness possessed,
It learned to dwell.
Scored by the mortal grain,
The soul shall, even as the body rest,
Its duplicate, awake, remembering pain.





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