Let us abandon then our gardens and go home <br />And sit in the sitting-room <br />Shall the larkspur blossom or the corn grow under this cloud? <br />Sour to the fruitful seed <br />Is the cold earth under this cloud, <br />Fostering quack and weed, we have marched upon but cannot <br />conquer; <br />We have bent the blades of our hoes against the stalks of them. <br /> <br />Let us go home, and sit in the sitting room. <br />Not in our day <br />Shall the cloud go over and the sun rise as before, <br />Beneficent upon us <br />Out of the glittering bay, <br />And the warm winds be blown inward from the sea <br />Moving the blades of corn <br />With a peaceful sound. <br /> <br />Forlorn, forlorn, <br />Stands the blue hay-rack by the empty mow. <br />And the petals drop to the ground, <br />Leaving the tree unfruited. <br />The sun that warmed our stooping backs and withered the weed <br />uprooted— <br />We shall not feel it again. <br />We shall die in darkness, and be buried in the rain. <br /> <br />What from the splendid dead <br />We have inherited — <br />Furrows sweet to the grain, and the weed subdued — <br />See now the slug and the mildew plunder. <br />Evil does overwhelm <br />The larkspur and the corn; <br />We have seen them go under. <br /> <br />Let us sit here, sit still, <br />Here in the sitting-room until we die; <br />At the step of Death on the walk, rise and go; <br />Leaving to our children's children the beautiful doorway, <br />And this elm, <br />And a blighted earth to till <br />With a broken hoe.<br /><br />Edna St. Vincent Millay<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/justice-denied-in-massachusetts/
