Words To Be Spoken
by Archibald MacLeish

for Baoth Wiborg son of Gerald and Sara Murphy who died in New
England in his sixteenth year and a tree was planted there

O shallow ground
That over ledges
Shoulders the gentle year.

Tender O shallow
Ground your grass is
Sisterly touching us:

Your trees are still:

They stand at our side in the

Night lantern.

Sister O shallow
Ground you inherit
Death as we do.

Your year also —
The young face,
The voice — vanishes.

Sister O shallow
Ground

let the silence of
Green be between us
And the green sound.