“For to-day is the first of May.”
(What matter? We work indoors.)
“And the miller grinds his flour to-day.”
(Ours comes in a sack from the stores.)
“Green-gravel! Green-gravel! How green the grass grows!”
(That's what they say, but nobody knows.)
The dancers in the shallow hall
Have mad, gay-colored shadows at their backs,
The heavy dancers flat of chest and small,
Who have not seen the corn, nor cut the flax;
Yet dimly know,
Under the music's hurrying lash,
Who are these shadows tossing wanton heads,
Letting their ribbons blow,
Blue, green, and flaming reds,
Making their cymbals clash.
The heavy dancers know, as if a sign
Had passed—a word had made them kin,
To these who haunt the music with their fine
Free bodies, beckoning brown and lean,
Beyond the walls—until, with shout and din,
The dancers wake, thrust through the screen
That holds them in,
And lift their heads, and stamp their feet and run,
As through a village gate on to a green,
A village green that leads into the sun.
“Mother, may I go out to swim?”
(You may stitch on black till your eyes are dim.)
“And where are you going, my pretty maid?”
(To work in the factory, sir, she said.)
“Oh, London Bridge is falling down.”
(But not the smoke-stacks in our town.)
The music tears their bodies with its hands,
Stirs them as sight of fire on a wide plain
At night; lulls them with crooning; brands
Their sense with heat of sun on fields of grain.
The mounting rhythm tugs at them and beats
Their blood, as winds beat water to a foam,
Whirls them through little towns with crooked streets,
And drives them madly home!
All in an instant, while an old tune sings,
These children, starved of day and song and mirth,
Touch with their naked feet the naked earth
That wakens in them, rings
Through them into a cry that they have known,
But have forgot—
The cry of earth unto her alien own,
Who have earth's sap for blood and ore for bone,
And are made strong,
With feet upon the soil like planted stone,
And red lips shaped to song.
“For to-day is the first of May.”
(We shall see the sunlight burn.)
“And the miller grinds his flour to-day.”
(We shall watch the mill-wheel turn.)
“Green-gravel! Green-gravel! How green the grass grows!”
(We shall tread it down with our naked toes.)
(What matter? We work indoors.)
“And the miller grinds his flour to-day.”
(Ours comes in a sack from the stores.)
“Green-gravel! Green-gravel! How green the grass grows!”
(That's what they say, but nobody knows.)
The dancers in the shallow hall
Have mad, gay-colored shadows at their backs,
The heavy dancers flat of chest and small,
Who have not seen the corn, nor cut the flax;
Yet dimly know,
Under the music's hurrying lash,
Who are these shadows tossing wanton heads,
Letting their ribbons blow,
Blue, green, and flaming reds,
Making their cymbals clash.
The heavy dancers know, as if a sign
Had passed—a word had made them kin,
To these who haunt the music with their fine
Free bodies, beckoning brown and lean,
Beyond the walls—until, with shout and din,
The dancers wake, thrust through the screen
That holds them in,
And lift their heads, and stamp their feet and run,
As through a village gate on to a green,
A village green that leads into the sun.
“Mother, may I go out to swim?”
(You may stitch on black till your eyes are dim.)
“And where are you going, my pretty maid?”
(To work in the factory, sir, she said.)
“Oh, London Bridge is falling down.”
(But not the smoke-stacks in our town.)
The music tears their bodies with its hands,
Stirs them as sight of fire on a wide plain
At night; lulls them with crooning; brands
Their sense with heat of sun on fields of grain.
The mounting rhythm tugs at them and beats
Their blood, as winds beat water to a foam,
Whirls them through little towns with crooked streets,
And drives them madly home!
All in an instant, while an old tune sings,
These children, starved of day and song and mirth,
Touch with their naked feet the naked earth
That wakens in them, rings
Through them into a cry that they have known,
But have forgot—
The cry of earth unto her alien own,
Who have earth's sap for blood and ore for bone,
And are made strong,
With feet upon the soil like planted stone,
And red lips shaped to song.
“For to-day is the first of May.”
(We shall see the sunlight burn.)
“And the miller grinds his flour to-day.”
(We shall watch the mill-wheel turn.)
“Green-gravel! Green-gravel! How green the grass grows!”
(We shall tread it down with our naked toes.)