Futility in 2nd person
Move you into the sun –
gently my touch woke you once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
Always it woke you , even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse you
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds –
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides
Full nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
– O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break Earth’s sleep at all? sun –
gently my touch woke you once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
Always it woke you , even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse you
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds –
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides
Full nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
– O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break Earth’s sleep at all?
React!