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Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Dispossessed

Lola Ridge

Tender and tremulous green of leaves
Turned up by the wind,
Twanging among the vines—
Wind in the grass
Blowing a clear path
For the new-stripped soul to pass…

The naked soul in the sunlight…
Like a wisp of smoke in the sunlight
On the hill-side shimmering.

Dance light on the wind, little soul,
Like a thistle-down floating
Over the butterflies
And the lumbering bees…

Come away from that tree
And its shadow grey as a stone…

Bathe in the pools of light
On the hillside shimmering—
Shining and wetted and warm in the sun-spray falling like golden rain—

But do not linger and look
At that bleak thing under the tree.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Ghetto and Other Poems | 1918
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