The Mind
Maidenhair
From A Selection from the Poems of Michael Field (1923)
Plato of the clear, dreaming eye and brave
Imaginings, conceived, withdrawn from light.
The hollow of man's heart even as a cave.
With century-slow dropping stalactite
My heart was dripping tedious in despair.
But yesterday, awhile before I slept:
I wake to find it live with maidenhair
And mosses to the spiky pendants crept.
Great prodigies there are — Jehovah's flood
Widening the margin of the Red Sea shore, —
Great marvel when the moon is turned to blood
It is to mortals, yet I marvel more
At the soft rifts, the pushings at my heart.
That lift the great stones of its rock apart.
Codex Note
From Wild Honey, as marked in the 1923 Selection.
Cite this poem
MLA
Field, Michael. “Maidenhair.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/field_m/192/.
Chicago
Field, Michael. “Maidenhair.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/field_m/192/.
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