Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BANDED, by EDWIN FORD PIPER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BANDED, by                    
First Line: Who are the banded? Gather from the four
Last Line: Shall ask for health, a clean soul, and good neighbors.
Subject(s): Neighbors


Who are the banded? Gather from the four
Broad winds one hundred strangers varying
In tongue, age, disposition; set them down
On the wild prairie where a neighbor's help
Is priceless. Each has left an ordered world
Where every wheel rolls on in its old rut
To the expected stopping place, and men
Make law of local patterns, local custom.
How shall these hundred settlers find adjustment
To their unsettled neighbors, and to thoughts
Novel and startling, thoughts which fostering years
May nourish to strange fruitage? 'Tis a problem
Too large for human powers, infinite
In nice complexities.

The spirit of life
Will draw this dusk confusion into form,
Will shape the self of the neighborhood wherein,
Like wheat straws in the bundle, men are bound,
And press upon each other, bringing help
Or harm not to be measured. Hate, and love,
And hateful love, and loving hate, and low
Passions that bind man to his brother beast,
And wild sweet hopes, and airy fancies lifted
Like a winged song half way from man to God,
Must merge into the spirit of the group
Which pipes for dancers, mourns to those that mourn,
Trains one wolfhound to charge the bristling pack,
Pampers another into poodle form,
And for a sulky brute lays a rod in brine.

Brutes may object to rods. Suppose the cur
When threatened, snarls, when beaten, howls and bites;
Dogs, children, wives, and neighbors swell the clamor, --
Bow-wow and boo-hoo, Fairview Ridge eruptive.

It's easier to start than end a fracas,
And status quo may seem beyond the reach
Of thought itself, demanding that each bristle
Shall lie sleek on the dog, and not a tremor
Stir in the extinct volcano.

Here the banded
Fashion the fate of man. Who prays for blessing
Shall ask for health, a clean soul, and good neighbors.





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