Ye who have passed Death’s haggard hills; and ye
Whom trees that knew your sires shall cease to know
And still stand silent:-is it all a show,-
A wisp that laughs upon the wall?-decree
Of some inexorable supremacy
Which ever, as man strains his blind surmise
From depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes,
Sphinx-faced with unabash?d augury?
Nay, rather question the Earth’s self. Invoke
The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-day
Whose roots are hillocks where the children play;
Or ask the silver sapling ‘neath what yoke
Those stars, his spray-crown’s clustering gems, shall wage
Their journey still when his boughs shrink with age.
(Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
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Based on Topics: Age Poems, Children Poems, Silver Poems, Self PoemsBased on Keywords: augury, hillocks, sapling, moss-grown, forest-trees, unabash