My youth was no more than a dark, looming storm Made bright here and there by transitory suns; Thunder and rain have made such havoc of its form That my garden scarcely shows what red fruits it had once. So at last I have come to the Autumn of ideas, And I must make use of the spade and the rakes To restore the flooded ground till its form reappears Where hollows great as tombs the delving water makes. And who knows if the new flowers that dreaming I see Will discover in this soil washed like sand on a bay The mystic nutriment that would set their force free? -O sorrow! O sorrow! Time eats life away And the Enemy in hiding who gnaws at our side On the blood we are losing grows and is fortified. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ECSTASY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA: 5. THE DANCING GIRL by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON NOBODY'S LOOKIN' BUT DE OWL AND DE MOON (A NEGRO SERENADE) by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON A SEA-SHORE GRAVE by SIDNEY LANIER JONES'S PRIVATE ARGYMENT by SIDNEY LANIER WAITING IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL by CLARENCE MAJOR HOW THE GREAT GUEST CAME by EDWIN MARKHAM |