CONTRADICTION by ALICE CARY

I LOVE the deep quiet -- all buried in leaves,
To sit the day long just as idle as air,
Till the spider grows tame at my elbow, and weaves,
And toadstools come up in a row round my chair.

I love the new furrows -- the cones of the pine,
The grasshopper's chirp, and the hum of the mote;
And short pasture-grass where the clover-blooms shine
Like red buttons set on a holiday coat.

Flocks packed in the hollows -- the droning of bees,
The stubble so brittle -- the damp and flat fen;
Old homesteads I love, in their clusters of trees,
And children and books, but not women nor men.

Yet, strange contradiction! I live in the sound
Of a sea-girdled city -- 't is thus that it fell,
And years, oh, how many! have gone since I bound
A sheaf for the harvest, or drank at a well.

And if, kindly reader, one moment you wait
To measure the poor little niche that you fill,
I think you will own it is custom or fate
That has made you the creature you are, not your will.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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