Sarah Pratt Carr (1850-1935)
“Heritage”
Within the smooth brown nut
That falls from the spreading oak,
Deep hid in fluted fold
Ere cup and shell are broke,
Lives, all in fairy form,
In bud, and leaf, and flow’r
The perfect tree; and years
Add size, their only dower.
And thus within your soul
Lie sleeping, all unguess’d,
The secrets of the past,
Dim visions half confess’d
Of other lives and other hearts
That died to live anew,
The sum of all that’s been,
The Past’s bequest to you.
