With these we will cry to another, with these we will stand apart to lure some god to our city, to hail him: return from your brake, your copse or your forest haunt. O spirit still left to our city, we call to your wooded haunt, we cry: O daemon of grasses, O spirit of simples and roots, O gods of the plants of the earth -- O god of the simples and grasses, we cry to you now from our hearts, O heal us -- bring balm for our sickness, return and soothe us with bark and hemlock and feverwort. O god of the power to strike out memory of terror past, bring branch of heal-all and tufts, of the sweet and the bitter grass, bring shaft and flower of the reeds and cresses and meadow plants. Return -- look again on our city, though the people cry through the streets, though they hail another, have pity -- return to our gates, with a love as great as theirs, we entreat you for our city's sake. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SINGER OF ONE SONG by HENRY AUGUSTIN BEERS SESTINA OF THE TRAMP ROYAL by RUDYARD KIPLING THE RETORT by GEORGE POPE MORRIS THE ASS IN THE LION'S SKIN by AESOP A CRADLE SONG OF THE NIGHT WIND by WILLIS BOYD ALLEN CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: 4. WORTHY MEMORY by WILLIAM BASSE |