Earth in Our Blood

There is a spirit in us that has sprung

From the nostalgic memory of the race-

The feel of certain words under the tongue,

The infinite features of the human face,

Remembrance of wind cruel cold in the bone,

The songs of men and all their various crying,

The strange thoughts of a child when left alone,

A long eternity of birth and dying.

We live by no mind that is only reason,

For there are in us strengths older than thought-

Memory of moon-earthed seeds, the treason

Of spring in our hearts, old family-named corn lands-

Eternal in us as ancestral-wrought

Curve of our thigh and the gripped shape of hands.