Revolution

What husks of last year's winter close you in,
To-morrow's world -- what dead, what wrinkled skin
Of ancient parchments, laws, beliefs! what dried,
Worn, tattered layers keep the life inside,
Where slender as a sword, and tender green
It trembles, pushes, patient and unseen:
Vibrating atom, fronded silken thread,
Some day to shake, to sunder back the dead
Two halves of hemispheres -- to pierce the crust
Of ages' rubbish, crowns and cults and dust!

See, iron arms, that clutter all the wide
Plateau of liberty -- see, fortified
Dull spikey towns -- you cannot hold your own
Against one seed a fecund earth has grown!
Alarmed you stand, alert to meet your foe,
Ready to battle blow for thundering blow;
Nor do you see this sprout of common wheat,
The blade, between your firm implanted feet.

Genevieve Taggard