* * *
I pause before the classroom door
Through which I passed, a child.
I smooth my hair, now grey and rare.
My sober heart runs wild.
From my old desk a boy shall rise
And come to welcome me!
That’s why there’s panic in my eyes…
And curiosity.
* * *
At song-birds and at nightingales
Do not cast a stone!
Girls, refrain from slighting males
By your callous tone!
You’re too hard on me, my dear.
Many a hasty word
Gives me pain no less severe
Than stones that strike a bird.
* * *
Don’t stare at me so haughtily!
With proud men I am proud,
Proud I have saddled my own horse,
And that I’ve sown and ploughed.
My heartbeat never falters,
I’m a patriot avowed.
Don’t stare at me so haughtily!
With proud men I am proud.
* * *
A young man in the village
Had a wife with raven hair.
When both of them were twenty,
War split the happy pair.
A hero’s grey-haired widow,
Now she sits beside her door.
Their son has seen more summers
Than his father ever saw.
* * *
So many men were torn away
From us in war’s dread sweep,
Remembrance of it still today
Makes wives and mothers weep.
New grass has grown, and grown are now
The sons of those who died…
And new fears flicker on the brow
Of mother and of bride.
* * *
In late April driving snow
Sweeps in clouds across the plain.
When it sees the earth below—
Look, it melts and falls as rain.
Racing down the mountain path,
Angrily to you I go.
But your presence melts my wrath
As the earth does April snow.