On What's Waiting Out There
To The Dead in the Graveyard Underneath My Window
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Adelaide Crapsey
Written in A Moment of Exasperation
How can you lie so still? All
day I watch
And never a blade of all the
green sod moves
To show where restlessly you
toss and turn,
And fling a desperate arm or
draw up knees
Stiffened and aching from
their long disuse;
I watch all night and not one
ghost comes forth
To take its freedom of the
midnight hour.
Oh, have you no rebellion in
your bones?
The very worms must scorn you
where you lie,
A pallid mouldering
acquiescent folk,
Meek habitants of unresented
graves.
Why are you there in your
straight row on row
Where I must ever see you from
my bed
That in your mere dumb
presence iterate
The text so weary in my ears:
"Lie still
And rest; be patient and lie
still and rest."
I'll not be patient! I will
not lie still!
There is a brown road runs
between the pines,
And further on the purple
woodlands lie,
And still beyond blue
mountains lift and loom;
And I would walk the road and
I would be
Deep in the wooded shade and I
would reach
The windy mountain tops that
touch the clouds.
My eyes may follow but my feet
are held.
Recumbent as you others must I
too
Submit? Be mimic of your
movelessness
With pillow and counterpane
for stone and sod?
And if the many sayings of the
wise
Teach of submission I will not
submit
But with a spirit all
unreconciled
Flash an unquenched defiance
to the stars.
Better it is to walk, to run,
to dance,
Better it is to laugh and leap
and sing,
To know the open skies of dawn
and night,
To move untrammeled down the
flaming noon,
And I will clamour it through
weary days
Keeping the edge of
deprivation sharp,
Nor with the pliant speaking
on my lips
Of resignation, sister to
defeat.
I'll not be patient. I will
not lie still.
And in ironic quietude who is
The despot of our days and
lord of dust
Needs but, scarce heeding,
wait to drop
Grim casual comment on
rebellion's end;
"Yes, yes . . Wilful and
petulant but now
As dead and quiet as the
others are."
And this each body and ghost
of you hath heard
That in your graves do
therefore lie so still.
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