Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

TO A YOUNG GIRL LEAVING THE HILL COUNTRY, by ARNA BONTEMPS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography

POEM TEXT:

The hills are wroth; the stones have scored you bitterly

Because you looked upon the naked sun

Oblivious of them, because you did not see

The trees you touched or mountains that you walked upon.

But there will come a day of darkness in the land,

A day wherein remembered sun alone comes through

To mark the hills; then perhaps you’ll understand

Just how it was you drew from them and they from you.

For there will be a bent old woman in that day

Who, feeling something of this country in her bones,

Will leave her house tapping with a stick, who will (they say)

Come back to seek the girl she was in these familiar stones.