(@3In Baltimore an exclusive residential section built a high wall between themselves and an encroaching poorer neighborhood.@1) They built a wall between us and the west. They said we'd overrun them like a weed Or, feeding on the air on which they feed, Deem ourselves worthy who must go oppressed. Their spire-flowers nodded with exquisite scent. Their great elms sprayed against the cooling skies. They planted cypress where the dew-stars rise And the red sun flares down to banishment. But we put poplars. Glassy green and frail, They rode the coming south wind with a shout Or shattered into weeping like thin hail, So that the people of the west came out To see what ailed the wall. They wedged the air Sharp as forgotten pain, as forgiveness fair. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VARIATIONS: 15 by CONRAD AIKEN CONTRA MORTEM: THE WOMAN by HAYDEN CARRUTH IN QUEST by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON O SOUTHLAND! by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON SORROWING LOVE by KATHERINE MANSFIELD IN THE TRENCHES by ISAAC ROSENBERG |