JUST MUD
What’s this live stuff you call a boy
Just in the plastic stage
And fairly oozing with the joy
Of youth’s unmoulded age?
What’s this to fashion into form
Of early blade or bud
Or fruit with life or color warm?
Why say, just mud!
What’s Summer’s golden harvest-yield
That ripens into grain,
The bloom of orchard, wood or field
So riotous with gain?
What’s this comes trooping with the grace
Of man-and-woman-hood
From out the muck of yesterdays?
Why say, just mud!
What’s yonder statue borne aloft
By noble edifice,
Which passers-by beholding oft
Forget immortal is
Of living deed and living art
(Now clay, once flesh and blood)
Both growing from a humble start?
Why say, just mud!