Mandragora/Waiting
WAITING
THE flowerless weeds along the tangled hedge
Listen and wait.
The willow-bushes by the water's edge
Listen and wait.
Under the earth I feel the roots of trees
Listening, waiting.
Oh Earth, oh Sky, oh secret hope of these!
Is it worth waiting?
So sinks my heart's faint whisper hopelessly,
Sinks and is gone;
While the round earth sweeps weeds and willows and me
Carelessly on;
And morning becomes noon, noon becomes night
In the same doubt.
No answer, not a word; till one by one
The stars come out.
And then — but not from them, for they too wait,
Ah, they wait too, the stars! — but from the night,
The night itself, oldest of all the gods.
The answer!
And all the flowerless weeds and the willows and I
Listen — hear nothing — yet are satisfied.
Portions of that Night we know ourselves to be;
Children of the oldest of all the gods are we,
And from ourselves we hide our own hearts' mystery!
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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