by Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856 - 1935)

Dead men
Language: English 
I stoop and pluck the tansy's gold,
Stacked in the gusts along my lane;
A shadowy hand plucks there with me;
Some dead man claims his own again.

Not anything is wholly mine,
Platter, or book, or stretch of clod;
The hurt in the dusk's tumbling red;
Or even the texture of my God.

And when the wind limps by my sill,
And heaps the village dust, and goes,
Whose phantom cloak is left behind,
Or whose great ship, or long-gone rose?

Confirmed with Lizette Woodworth Reese, Wild Cherry, Baltimore, Md: The Norman, Remington Co, 1923.


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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2022-01-22
Line count: 12
Word count: 82