|
|
Classic and Contemporary Poetry
EARTH AND AIR, by FRANK ERNEST HILL Poet's Biography First Line: Earth is the tower of granite, the floor of loam Last Line: That open a door. Subject(s): Earth; World | |||
I Earth is the tower of granite, the floor of loam, The grass that seeds, the sheep that fatten for men, The shapes that are beaten in fire or built in wall, The plow preparing the soil to be born again, The crystal well, the gold of the honey comb, And hands that pattern with wool or hide or clay; Earth is the wain, the sickle, the sledge, the stall -- Earth is our yesterday. II Air is the thrust of steam and of burning gas, The spark men take from the foam of a falling stream, The word of the first sea caught on the last of the seven, Ships with the speed of a dream made more than dream; The throb of steel in a cage of steel and glass, Iron fingers at smooth and gleaming play, Air is the wings of men on the sea of heaven -- Air is to-day. III Earth is the suck of men, their loaf and their healing; With earth they are poor but sapful, driven but strong; Air is a high, thin world where there eyes grow weaker, Their round breasts flatten, their cheeks fall white and long. Air is a shifting floor and a viewless ceiling, Genii building and wrecking and building again, It is half-heard magic speech from a hidden speaker Sounding through light and rain. IV Men with the vision of air went planning and building; They dreamed of slaves of iron and wrought their slaves; They envied the wind and the eagle and spread their wings Above the shadow of sinking woods and waves. Men made little suns for the midnight's gilding, Bridged with their wires the bridgeless gap of seas; They dulled the teeth of winter, they turned the stings And withering of disease. V Men with the dream of air have climbed to their vision, But now they are faint for the meat of a day gone by; The steeds of the sun race on in a golden madness, The hurtling drivers are pale in the height of the sky. Some say: "Hard fate in a wrath and a great derision Has laid the tools of gods in the hands of men; Can dust breed stars? Can tears be distilled to gladness! Let us go to earth again!" VI But the many hear not, the millions follow their dreaming, Driving their iron cattle on stone or steel, Flying their iron hawks on an airy ocean, Bearing children that play with the spark and the wheel. They will never turn from swiftness and silver gleaming, Or the sense that he who has taken in wheel or rod The staff of gods and the magic of god-like motion Himself shall become a god. VII Perhaps they will come again to the sun and the bough, The wind and the clod that once were their strife and their fare; They will take not of olden beauty or olden toil; They will only come back to earth when earth is air -- When they girdle the peaks with pavement and send their plow Like a whirl of wind, and store their snow and their sun, And sow where the strength they have sifted into the soil Yields five instead of one. VIII Look back, then, you who had love for earth, and regret her And mourn a change that harries your hill and sky; For men are turned from the peace of the scythe and candle; Their eyes are fierce for the bright and the swift and the high. They have wrecked a world for the leaping dream of a better, And gone from peace toward a peace beyond a war, They have mounted untrodden stairs to a key and a handle That open a door. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BROKEN BALANCE by ROBINSON JEFFERS SUBJECTED EARTH by ROBINSON JEFFERS GEOMETAPHYSICS by MARGARET AVISON NIAGARA by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS SOPHISTICATION by CONRAD AIKEN I SEE CHILE IN MY REARVIEW MIRROR by AGHA SHAHID ALI WASHING OUR HANDS OF THE REST OF AMERICA by MARVIN BELL THE EARTH IS A LIVING THING by LUCILLE CLIFTON |
| |