The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tasting the Earth, by Mona Gould

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Title: Tasting the Earth

Author: Mona Gould

Release Date: November 15, 2010 [eBook #34328]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TASTING THE EARTH***

Copyright (C) 1943 by The Estate of Mona Gould.

"On the food of the strong I fed, on dark strange life itself,
Wisdom-giving and sombre with the unremitting love of ages.
There was dank soil in my mouth,
And bitter sea on my lips
In a dark hour, tasting the Earth."

James Oppenheim

Copyright, Canada, 1943 By Mona Gould All rights reserved - no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper. Printed in Canada T.H. Best Printing Co., Limited Toronto. Ont.

To Graham and John

Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Alfred A. Knopf Inc.,
publisher, New York, for permission to use the lines from
"Tasting the Earth" by James Oppenheim, from his
Songs For the New Age (1914), and for permission to reprint to:
Saturday Night, Chatelaine, Montreal C.A.A. Year Books,
Canadian Forum., Gossip, Montrealer, Canadian Magazine,
Woman's Illustrated (London, Eng. ), Woman's Journal (London, Eng.).

Foreword

We all of us know that the ordinary every-day man and woman, the people we brush against in street cars, the people who read the funnies - the people who are like us - are capable of the profoundest depths of feeling and the noblest aspirations. But it is only on the rarest occasions that we happen to see one of them at it, so to speak, and when we do we have a certain sense of shame at intruding on something that really should be private between him and his God.

The artist enables us to see this ordinary man and woman in the moments when they are not ordinary, without any of this sense of intrusion. I think Mona Gould, in most of the verses in this volume, has been exceptionally successful in this kind of revelation, and I think Canada needs it. A number of these verses have been published in "Saturday Night" during the term of my editorship, and I am very glad that they are now to have a more permanent resting place.

B. K. Sandwell

Contents

Colour in the Willows

"They Also Serve …"

Litany for the Lonely

This Was My Brother

"Nostalgia"

"Toujours Gai"

That Girl in Hong Kong

Image

Convoy

Answer Me!

Immorality, 1943

Cathedral

You Wrote

Blood Donor Clinic 10 a.m.

Promise

Tasting the Earth

Spring Sunday … in a Small Town

Ghost of New Year's Eve

Quiet Has Come Down

Hands

Rain … in the City

You, the Sower of Seed

Nightmare

Contact

Autumn is Unfair

Nocturne

Portrait of Father

Small Christmas Tree

Ladies at Tea

Portrait

Hill-top, Caledon

You, Being Dead

Dilemma

Night Garden

Some Quiet Day … Perhaps

Cloister

Colour In the Willows

Darling … the colour has come back, in the willows.
Remember how it was, last year? Incredibly orange …
Little orange willow switches
Hardly bending;
Remember the white shore road
And the blue water in the Bay
Still fretted with clotted snow
At the sand edge?
The sky was a light, high blue
And all the clouds were little, and frisky.
And we kept making wagers about the willows
At every curve in the road.
Darling … the colour has come back in the willows;
But I have no one … to bet with!

"They Also Serve …"

Nightly, still, I dress for you,
In frocks of fabric and of hue
You would have liked.
Silly, I know, when you are gone,
To care if shoes are black or fawn;
To match my lip rouge with a ring;
To pin gardenias at my breast;
To brush my hair till it is sleek
As carded silk … and in my eyes
To wear a look of glad surprise!
Nightly, still, I dress for you -
Because I know you'd want me to!

Litany For the Lonely

You're warmth and laughter …
You're the "good time"!
You're security …
And sleeping with arms 'round
And no night …
And the dark shut out!
You're pain
Drowned in joy,
And laughter from the heart …
You're loving kindness …
The look of dear acquaintance
And a hand to hold,
Always!

This Was My Brother
(For Lt.-Col. Howard McTavish, killed in action at Dieppe)

This was my brother
At Dieppe,
Quietly a hero
Who gave his life
Like a gift,
Withholding nothing.

His youth … his love …
His enjoyment of being alive …
His future, like a book
With half the pages still uncut -

This was my brother
At Dieppe -
The one who built me a doll house
When I was seven,
Complete to the last small picture frame,
Nothing forgotten.

He was awfully good at fixing things,
At stepping into the breach when he was needed.

That's what he did at Dieppe;
He was needed.
And even Death must have been a little shamed
At his eagerness!

"NostAglia"

What's "nostAglia", Mums?
"NostAglia … ?" Oh, you mean
"Nostalgia", Son, let me see …
How can I explain it to you, this "nostAglia",
(As good a word for it as any!)
Well … Darling …
"NostAglia", is that funny pit-of-the-tummy feeling
You get
Going down in elevators
Only you're not in an elevator -
It just comes.
Everything sort of goes away from you,
And you feel a little scared
And a lot lonely …
It's like this
Remember Tippy … the little brown dog …
And how we loved him;
And how he ran just a little ahead of you,
Just a little too fast
And you, chasing him on your tricycle …
And the curb came,
And you stopped,
And Tip, didn't