Lesbia Harford: Verses about Today

Today they made a bonfire
Close to the cherry tree
And smoke like incense drifted
Through the white tracery.
I think the gardener really
Played a tremendous game,
Offering beauty homage
In soft blue smoke and flame.

Today when you went up the hill
And all that I could see
Was just a speck of black and white
Very far from me,
It seemed more strange than words can say,
The dot that I could see,
Really was the dearest thing
The world holds for me.

Today, in class,
I read aloud to forty little boys
The legend of King Croesus' boasted joys.
They were so young,
Restless, and eager, I believed they'd find
This moral story little to their mind.
But they were pleased
With the old legend, quick to comprehend
Sorrowful wisdom's triumph at the end:
They seemed to feel,
In hush of wonder, hurry of amaze,
The sure uncertainty of all men's days.

Today is rebels' day. And yet we work—
All of us rebels, until day is done.
And when the stars come out we celebrate
A revolution that's not yet begun.
Today is rebels' day. And men in jail
Tread the old mill-round until day is done.
And when night falls they sit alone to brood
On revolution that's not yet begun.
Today is rebels' day. Let all of us
Take courage to fight on until we're done—
Fight though we may not live to see the hour
The Revolution's splendidly begun.

Today I saw
A market cart going along the road,
High-piled and creaking with a sonsy load
Of cabbages.
The driver sat
Under a little tent himself had made
To give him shelter from the rain or shade
In summertime.
Such men as he,
Backed by the riches of a country side,
Should have kings' faces, full of jolly pride
In comeliness.
But he was tired
After a night's work under starlit skies,
And crouched like a poor slave, with anxious eyes
Turned citywards.