From the racked substance of the earth comes the plant and <br />That with heat and the night frost is tortured: <br />To some perfection that grows, man's thoughts wills his hand — <br />Roots rent, crown broken, grub holed, it is drawn upward. <br /> <br />A hundred things since the first stir have hunted it, <br />The rooks any time might have swallowed ungrateful, <br />Caterpillars, slugs, as it grew, have counted on it, <br />And man the planter bent his gaze down on it fateful. <br /> <br />The thing will go to market, it must be picked up and loaded, <br />The salesman will doubt it or chuck it anyway in, <br />A horse must be harnessed first, or a donkey goaded <br />Before the purchaser may ever the first price pay for it. <br />Who may be now trembling with vast impatience <br />And anxieties and mixed hopes for a resurrection <br />Out of the mouldering soul — to be new form, have perfections <br />Of flowers and petal and blade, to die, to be born to clean action.<br /><br />Ivor Gurney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/of-cruelty/
