Byron Herbert Reece (September 14, 1917 - June 3, 1958) I Know a Valley Green with Corn I know a valley green with corn Where Nottley’s waters roil and run From the deep hills where first at morn It takes the color of the sun And bears it burning through the shade Of birch and willow till its tide Pours like a pulse, and never stayed, Dark where the Gulf’s edge reaches wide. There, while the twilight spends its dream Of light and shadow both, the whir Of bats and cry of doves will seem A very liveness of the air. About a house the ivy’s foot Creeps slowly up to hide the eaves And wreathe the chimney, dark with soot, Into a colonnade of leaves. And one will loiter in the yard Soft shadowed by the last of day As if she waited for a word From lips three thousand miles away That yearn to speak against her hair But, dumb behind the palm of space Tauten to trembling, while there Darkness obliterates her face. -Byron Herbert Reece in A Song of Joy and Other Poems, c1952.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 20:37:49 +0000