Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN OLD ELM TO A SAPLING, by VIOLET ALLEYN STOREY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN OLD ELM TO A SAPLING, by                    
First Line: Hold fast to earth and have no shame
Last Line: And stand a cynosure to god!
Subject(s): Advice; Growth; Trees


Hold fast to earth and have no shame
In loving that from which you came.
Much that you are was in the ground
That wrapped your tiny seedling round.
The cosmic question -- what is Death? --
Is answered in earth's even breath; --
There all that's been is yet to be. --
By means of it your parent tree
Could lift you to a wing-fanned height,
A wee samara, stroked by light.
The wind's slim shoulders, curved with toil,
Bore you below to that same soil,
And you have learned, by lying there,
To carve your being out of air!

Reach up towards heaven, remembering
In swirls of vagueness that faint spring
When, drowsing on the sky's blue shelf,
You were and yet were not yourself.
Let gracile branches twist their way
Across the quiet night and day,
Content to know you share a scheme
That is a God's unending dream,
And ever willing to aspire
To something mystically higher.
Bend not to each slim air, but know
Strong winds that bear your seeds below.
In stars and silence wisdom find.
To storms be firm; to birds be kind!

Show love for earth and heaven, too,
By rendering unto each its due: --
Shed leaves to fertilize the sod,
And stand a cynosure to God!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net