Grey Walls (Verse)

...Tell them the hawks that wander in the sky Are their high progeny, for they look down And find no sight familiar to the eye Except perhaps the graveyard in the town...

...That Power, at least, in which their bones believed Has counted all their labors one by one...

...Grey wall, grey wall, there lies by the wood's brink An emerald hollow and a spring that seeps...

...Tell them their like in old New England now Are pines—not men—old white pines dead, that stand High o'er a sapling wood, too proud to bow Trying to hold the stars in their dead hand...

...Daniel Sargent...

...It weeps for those old men...

...Tell to these dead the plans that they conceived Are dead as they, and yet God's plans live on...

...May 8, 1929 THE COMMONWEAL 13 Grey Walls Grey wall that wanders through New England fields Contemplative of what abides there still, Dodging right-angled through the various yields Of sweet-fern, cat-briar, cow-corn, what-you-will, Waiting by orchards where the hid bees hum, Watching the village from the high hill-slope, Lost in a forest (which it knew would come As little by little the clearing gave up hope) Making, I say, some boundary through a wood Where only the squirrel ferrets where it goes, Emerging on an opening where there stood A red barn, as the ruined cellar shows, Veering, perchance, from where that tulip flower, The factory chimney, blooms and never fades, Staring at the new villa, glaring dour At highways and their horseless cavalcades, Grey wall, grey wall, I would address thee, go Speak to the men who builded thee of old, Give them this message that the living owe To those who lie invisible in the mold...

...I bid thee drink Its tear-drops for the memory it keeps...