| Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919. |
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| James Oppenheim. 1882– |
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| 94. Tasting the Earth |
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| IN a dark hour, tasting the Earth. | |
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| As I lay on my couch in the muffled night, and the rain lashed my window, | |
| And my forsaken heart would give me no rest, no pause and no peace, | |
| Though I turned my face far from the wailing of my bereavement.... | |
| Then I said: I will eat of this sorrow to its last shred, | 5 |
| I will take it unto me utterly, | |
| I will see if I be not strong enough to contain it.... | |
| What do I fear? Discomfort? | |
| How can it hurt me, this bitterness? | |
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| The miracle, then! | 10 |
| Turning toward it, and giving up to it, | |
| I found it deeper than my own self.... | |
| O dark great mother-globe so close beneath me... | |
| It was she with her inexhaustible grief, | |
| Ages of blood-drenched jungles, and the smoking of craters, and the roar of tempests, | 15 |
| And moan of the forsaken seas, | |
| It was she with the hills beginning to walk in the shapes of the dark-hearted animals, | |
| It was she risen, dashing away tears and praying to dumb skies, in the pomp-crumbling tragedy of man... | |
| It was she, container of all griefs, and the buried dust of broken hearts, | |
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| Cry of the christs and the lovers and the child-stripped mothers, | 20 |
| And ambition gone down to defeat, and the battle overborne, | |
| And the dreams that have no waking.... | |
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| My heart became her ancient heart: | |
| On the food of the strong I fed, on dark strange life itself: | |
| Wisdom-giving and sombre with the unremitting love of ages.... | 25 |
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| There was dank soil in my mouth, | |
| And bitter sea on my lips, | |
| In a dark hour, tasting the Earth. | |
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