Poems (Tree)/The Undertone of the Volga Boat Song

by Iris Tree

THE UNDERTONE OF THE VOLGA BOAT SONG

O God,
We have nothing to give Thee,
We are as fog that drifts on the river,
As the wailing of voices blown through mist—
We are as those that carry bags of dust
Heaping them with the dust—
We are covered with the dust of days,
We are pale from the dust of dreamless nights
Shaken before we were rested—
At dawn we are found by the sun
Adrift, labouring, thinking of nothing—
Our wine is bitter, it has made us drunk,
Our bread is coarse,
We are always athirst and hungry. . . .
O God, we have been patient,
We have grown old in weariness,
Our lives are as the labouring of the wind—
We are huddled together in the dawn,
The sleeping houses pass us,
The dawn is a field of nettles
Stinging us from rest. . . .
O God,
We have nothing to give Thee but patience,
We have suffered evil and believed Thee good,
Thy face is the gentleness of the distance,
The river is placid with the thought of Thee—
Our tears have washed us harder than the rocks,
And like the rocks we wait,
Grow old with waiting. . . .
Weariness, the river
Flowing through banks of sleep. . . .
O God, we have nothing to give Thee,
Take our great weariness,
We that have never lived and never slept,
Take our long weariness, O God! . . .

1919