Explore "Underground System" by Edna St. Vincent Millay on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Set the foot down with distrust upon the crust of the world-it is thin.
Moles are at work beneath us; they have tunnelled the sub-soil / With separate chambers, which at an appointed knock
Could be as one, could intersect and interlock. We walk on the skin / Of life. No toil
Of rake or hoe, no lime, no phosphate, no rotation of crops, no irrigation of the land, / Will coax the limp and flattened grain to stand / On that bad day, or feed to strength the nibbled roots of our nation.
Ease has demoralized us, nearly so; we know / Nothing of the rigours of winter: the house has a roof against- the car a top against-the snow.
All will be well, we say; it is a habit, like the rising of the sun, / For our country to prosper; who can prevail against us? No one.
The house has a roof; but the boards of its floor are rotting, and hall upon hall / The moles have built their palace beneath us; we have not far to fall.