Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UTAH, by HARRIET MONROE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

UTAH, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: It was a queer country your harsh lord gave you
Last Line: In stones that make it fair.
Subject(s): Utah


It was a queer country your harsh Lord gave you,
Great Brigham, whom I see coated and curled
In bronze before me in the public square!
It was a scraped and shining skeleton,
Gnawed to the bone long since at God's first breakfast
And thrown away to bleach out in the sun.
Yet here He led you --
The Lord and his vicegerent Joseph Smith --
He ordered you
To take the dead earth from His niggard hand
And set His Throne up by the salty sea --
The little bucketful of ocean, poured
Over the desert's feet between the hills.

And so you starved and prayed,
Thirsted and starved and prayed through the lean years,
Keeping the faith, digging your little ditches,
Making the desert blossom as the rose.
You married many wives,
And got you many children to fulfil
The special order whispered in the night
To His apostle by the Lord Himself --
The God of Abraham, of Saul and David,
Of Solomon and other lustful kings.

And here, tithe upon tithe, stone upon stone,
Your saints built up His throne unto the Lord
From plans the angel taught your hand to draw:
His new Solomon's Temple, heaven-rememberd,
To rise again here at the western gate,
And prove His glory in these latter days!
Great Brigham, sleeping now under the desert
With all your wives,
What summary vengeance have you meted out
To that ironic angel?

He alone builds
Who builds for beauty, shrining his little truth
In stones that make it fair.





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