Harold Monro
Two Poems
(Numbers I and X in ‘Strange Meetings’)
I If suddenly a clod of earth should rise,
And walk about, and breathe, and speak, and love,
How one would tremble, and in what surprise
Gasp: ‘Can you move?’
I see men walking, and I always feel:
‘Earth! How have you done this? What can you be?’
I can’t learn how to know men, or conceal
How strange they are to me.
II A flower is looking through the ground,
Blinking at the April weather;
Now a child has seen the flower:
Now they go and play together.
Now it seems the flower will speak,
And will call the child its brother —
But, oh strange forgetfulness! —
They don’t recognize each other.
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