The Poetry of A Root Crop

Underneath their eider-robe

Russet swede and golden globe,

Feathered carrot, burrowing deep,

Steadfast wait in charmed sleep;

Treasure-houses wherein lie,

Locked by angels' alchemy,

Milk and hair, and blood, and bone,

Children of the barren stone;

Children of the flaming Air,

With his blue eye keen and bare,

Spirit-peopled smiling down

On frozen field and toiling town—

Toiling town that will not heed

God His voice for rage and greed;

Frozen fields that surpliced lie,

Gazing patient at the sky;

Like some marble carven nun,

With folded hands when work is done,

Who mute upon her tomb doth pray,

Till the resurrection day.

Eversley, 1845.