Poems of Sidney Lanier/Street Cries/Tyranny

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City Cries: IV. Tyranny

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This is the fourth poem of Lanier’s collection Street Cries. Lanier composed this poem in Prattville, Alabama, in 1868.

117347Poems of Sidney Lanier/Street Cries — City Cries: IV. TyrannySidney Lanier

IV.
TYRANNY.

"Spring-germs, spring-germs,I charge you by your life, go back to death.This glebe is sick, this wind is foul of breath.Stay: feed the worms.

"Oh! every clodIs faint, and falters from the war of growthAnd crumbles in a dreary dust of sloth,Unploughed, untrod.

"What need, what need,To hide with flowers the curse upon the hills,Or sanctify the banks of sluggish rillsWhere vapors breed?

"And—if needs must—Advance, O Summer-heats! upon the land,And bake the bloody mould to shards and sandAnd dust.

"Before your birth,Burn up, O Roses! with your dainty flame.Good Violets, sweet Violets, hide shameBelow the earth.

"Ye silent Mills,Reject the bitter kindness of the moss.O Farms! protest if any tree embossThe barren hills.

"Young Trade is dead,And swart Work sullen sits in the hillside fernAnd folds his arms that find no bread to earn,And bows his head.

"Spring-germs, spring-germs,Albeit the towns have left you place to play,I charge you, sport not. Winter owns to-day,Stay: feed the worms."

Pratville, Alabama, 1868.