On a March day

J. Duke

Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind

That shakes the naked shadows on the ground,

Making a key-board of the earth to strike

From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound,

Bear witness for me that I loved my life,

All things that hurt me and all things that healed,

And that I swore it this day in March,

Here at the edge of this new-broken field.

You only knew me, tell them I was glad

For every hour since my hour of birth,

And that I ceased to fear, as once I feared,

The last complete reunion with the earth.