THE PADDOCK
Shall a foam-flake root up the rocks?
..Lo, a bubble of foam on the crest of the incoming wave,
And after the rising and poising—the passing away!
So it ever hath been: so it is.
Enough! So be it: so best!
For, tell me, lingering fern,
Child of the forest—the forest fell’d,
Would’st thou brave the open, alone,
A jest to the withering winds?
—Uprooted weed of the wave,
Would’st thou stay a slave to the stones,
Decay’d, an offence?
What? Is it so sweet to be lonely?
Enough! what is doom’d, let it die, what is dead, be it buried!
Where the heads of my kinsfolk are fallen,
Lay mine low!
Where the fence of their pa is white ashes,
Speed, flames on my roof!
Where the bones of my kinsfolk lie bleaching and crumbling together
Let mine that are broken, grow whiter than [1]Kokota-shell.
Yea, if of my tribe I was verily one,
One with my tribe let me be—
Count, count, count me among them,
O Death! for it is enough.
Lo! the last of the seeds—they are sown!
Take now your rest,
- ↑ Kókota: A white bivalve.
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