A THOUSAND GIRLS WITH GOLDEN HAIR

 A very beautiful poem today from the often brilliant public service, ‘Poem-a-day’, by Edwin Arlington Robinson about the mysterious and ever-changing nature of the world. I love the metaphor of the thousand girls with golden hair that ‘rise’ and ‘go away.’ Very powerful. Love Susie x

 

The Sheaves

 

Where long the shadows of the wind had rolled,

Green wheat was yielding to the change assigned;

And as by some vast magic undivined

The world was turning slowly into gold.

Like nothing that was ever bought or sold

It waited there, the body and the mind;

And with a mighty meaning of a kind

That tells the more the more it is not told.

So in a land where all days are not fair,

Fair days went on till on another day

A thousand golden sheaves were lying there,

Shining and still, but not for long to stay—

As if a thousand girls with golden hair

Might rise from where they slept and go away.

 

Edwin Arlington Robinson