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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FEUD, by                    
First Line: When the cruelest word of them all is spoken
Last Line: What a rose would forget!
Subject(s): Fights; Quarrels; Arguments; Disagreements


When the cruelest word of them all is spoken,
And the eyes stab deep, to the devils of old;
When to starving lips the bread is unbroken,
For hostile things retold --
Then I go where the roses have known such grief,
That the thorn was first and the gift the last;
And I gather and gather, from the sin to the sheaf,
All the bud -- and its past!

And I bring them, beyond our passion and weighing,
And my fingers are red where they spoke to me,
And my eyes hold the wordless petition of praying,
And my body -- the plea.
And I lift them to you, as brimmed as a lake,
This convoy of color, this gift -- and this debt,
And by memory, anointed, they overtake
What a rose would forget!





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