Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CLASS DAY POEM, by MERCEDES IRENE MORITZ


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CLASS DAY POEM, by                    
First Line: If we had lived a little time ago
Last Line: For we have found the flower blue that springs from a sesame-seed.
Alternate Author Name(s): Randall, Mercedes
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


IF we had lived a little time ago,
We should be sitting by the ingle-side,
The fitful fire glancing on our hair,
The purple shadows clinging to our feet,
Idly watching the world pass
Like shapes that flit across a glass.

The mirror's silver shield is tarnished now
From long disuse.
For last morning, when the soot-stained foundries
Pursed up their chimney-lips,
We heard the raucous challenge sent in clots of inky smoke.
And today
We feel the epic grandeur of the City's crashing roar
Thrill with the lyric beauty of the gold-tipped Woolworth tower,
And marvel at the romance of the triple thorofares.
But there are many dust-choked rooms, boarded with planks of death,
That look on unlit alleys where long-fingered shadows reach,
Unembroidered with the gold and green of sunlight and of leaves.
Their unanswered call is sounding. We must lift our high white rage,
Open wide those shuttered windows to let light and life stream in.

The stripling day has grown to sunny noon.
Mid-deep in that high noon we stand,
But with the urge of morning in us
And coursing sap of spring.
We go, as those before have gone
To spin the gossamers of beauty out of the silken stuff of dreams,
And more
To forge the steel of sacrifice and service as we can,
For we have found the flower blue that springs from a sesame-seed.





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