UPON the brown and frozen sod The wind's wet fingers shake the rain; The bare shrubs shiver in the blast Against the dripping window-pane. Inside, strange shadows haunt the room, The flickering firelights rise and fall, And make I know not what strange shapes Upon the pale gray parlor wall. I feel, but do not see these things, -- My soul stands under other skies; There is a wondrous radiance comes Between my eyelids and my eyes. I seem to pull down on my feet God's gentian flowers, as on I pass Through a great prairie, still and sweet With growing vines and blowing grass. And then -- ah! whence can he have come? -- I feel a small hand touching mine; Our voices first are like the breath That sways the grass and scented vine. But clearer grow the childish words Of Egypt and of Hindostan; And Archie's telling me again Where he will go when he's a man. The smell of pines is strangely blent With sandal-wood, and broken spice, And cores of calamus; the flowers Grow into gems of wondrous price. We sit down in the grass and dream; His face grows strangely bright and fair; I think it is the amber gleam Of sunset in his pale gold hair. But while I look I see a path Across the prairie to the light; And Archie, with his small, bare feet, Has almost passed beyond my sight. Upon my heart there falls a smile, Upon my ears a soft adieu: I see the glory in his face, And know his dreams have all come true. Some day I shall go hence and home, -- We shall go hence, I mean to say; And as we pass the shoals of time, "My brother," I shall, pleading, say, "There was upon the prairie wide A spot so dear to thee and me, I fain would see it ere we walk The fields of Immortality." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LIKE A BULRUSH by MARIANNE MOORE PICKING AND CHOOSING by MARIANNE MOORE THE COMING OF WAR: ACTAEON by EZRA POUND |