“ As in a black wood whereof flowers and boughs are the roots,And the moist-branching tendrils and ligaments,Woven or spiralled or spreading, the roof of my head,Blossomless, birdless, starless, skied with black earth,A ponderous heaven. But they forget,Too often forget, and too soon, who above usBrush the dead leaves from our mounds,Scrape the moss from our names,And feel safe,They forget that one day in the year our earth becomes ether,And the roots binding us loosenAs Peter’s chains dropped for the Angel,In that old story they read there ”
Edith Wharton
Summary
“Twelve poems”, is a work by Edith Wharton. It explores elements such as Blossomless, birdless and Sideward.
Quotes from Twelve poems (Edith Wharton)
“ I knew that, below there, by the way the roots kept pushing,But I’d forgotten how tender it was on the earth ...So quickly the dead forget!And the living? I think, after all, they remember,With everything about them so unchanged,And no leaden loam on their eyes.Yes, surely, I know he remembers;Whenever he touches the broken latch,He thinks: “How often she asked me,And how careless I was not to mend it!” ”
“ Laid idle now beneath the earth we tread— And always we shall walk with the young dead—Ah, how I pity the young dead, whose eyesStrain through the sod to see these perfect skies,Who feel the new wheat springing in their stead,And the lark singing for them overhead! ”
