When I was little, once I heard it said,
“Men are the greatest who have long lain dead.”
And so I threw my soldier’s soul away
And let him sleep behind my plant one day.
But when I brought him back, he had to lie
Out in the sun to let the dampness dry.
And other things that died and went away
Seemed no more great with the passing of each day.
“Oh, life,” I mourned, “make it that I shall see
The fame or not that death will bring to me.”
And form the wind a curious smell arose —
The dampness drying from my soldier’s clothes.
This piece originally appeared in New Strung Bow, a book of poems written by Sarah Lawrence students that was published in 1932.