"Country Scene" by Alice Guo
1819-1892
1
Give
me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,
Give
me autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,
Give me a field
where the unmow'd grass grows,
Give me an arbor, give me the
trellis'd grape,
Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me
serene-moving animals teaching
content,
Give me nights
perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the
Mississippi, and
I looking up at the stars,
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of
beautiful flowers where I can
walk undisturb'd,
Give me for
marriage a sweet-breath'd woman of whom I should never tire,
Give
me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise of the
world
a rural domestic life,
Give me to warble spontaneous songs
recluse by myself, for my own ears only,
Give me solitude, give
me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal
sanities!
These
demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement, and
rack'd
by the war-strife,)
These to procure incessantly asking, rising
in cries from my heart,
While yet incessantly asking still I
adhere to my city,
Day upon day and year upon year O city,
walking your streets,
Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time
refusing to give me up,
Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd
of soul, you give me forever faces;
(O I see what I sought to
escape, confronting, reversing my cries,
see my own soul
trampling down what it ask'd for.)
2
Keep your splendid silent sun,
Keep your woods O Nature,
and the quiet places by the woods,
Keep your fields of clover and
timothy, and your corn-fields and orchards,
Keep the blossoming
buckwheat fields where the Ninth-month bees hum;
Give me faces
and streets--give me these phantoms incessant and
endless along
the trottoirs!
Give me interminable eyes--give me women--give me
comrades and
lovers by the thousand!
Let me see new ones
every day--let me hold new ones by the hand every day!
Give me
such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!
Give me Broadway,
with the soldiers marching--give me the sound of
the trumpets and
drums!
(The soldiers in companies or regiments--some starting
away, flush'd
and reckless,
Some, their time up, returning
with thinn'd ranks, young, yet very
old, worn, marching, noticing
nothing;)
Give me the shores and wharves heavy-fringed with black
ships!
O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and
varied!
The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!
The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the
torchlight procession!
The dense brigade bound for the war,
with high piled military wagons
following;
People, endless,
streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants,
Manhattan
streets with their powerful throbs, with beating drums as now,
The
endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even
the
sight of the wounded,)
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent
musical chorus!
Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.
