In honour of National Poetry Day.

[fjm]

I pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave me birth;
Let me rest my eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth
Let me breathe unrationed air again
Where there’s no lack or dearth

Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely mother planet,
Of the cool green hills of earth [...]

We rot in the molds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death.

We’ve tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned it’s true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.

Rhysling, Blind Singer of the Spaceways, "The Green Hills of Earth" (1947)

https://unbound.com/books/robert-heinlein

Comments

[cmcmck]

Nice!

[anef]

That's a nice poem, but one cannot help thinking that the writer had had exposure to a very limited range of earth scenery...