Song before Outcry

Living lances hard as steel, slender branches growing

harder,

Wall in one who hour on hour has but flinching self for

warder.

Long as lanceheads, edged as flint, thé thrifty prickles of

these hedges,

Sucking food of grass and flower writhen backward from

their edges.

Beyond are fields and orchard boughs and meadowland

warm shadows dapple,

While niggardly the fool must fare whose feast is but this

thorn's wry apple.