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August Manson
If he could break loose just one week for pleasure And make the trip home! What it would be worth To poise the plow-tip for its steady pressure And feel the soft rip of the ready earth! To walk, and work with shoulders all day long And breathe the openness and clean earth-smell, And know instead of prisoner's nerves a strong Good body-tiredness from day's work done well! To drench his face at the windmill in the yard, Change shoes, enter the scrubbed warm kitchen, feed- Bite off the big coarse mouthfuls, for his hard Big-teeth to cope with in his hunger's need! Something will rot here that he cannot spare. And what gained? Some life-job in stuffy air.