A Common Tongue

My family’s was a plain, laconic speech,
The sort intended never to impress
But, with a grudge at broken silence, reach
Its point and stop, if it could do no less.
Small wonder, then, that all extravagance
Should once have struck me with a blush of shame
And yet still drew my eyes as radiance
Wielded a power I sensed but could not name.

But wonderful indeed that, having known
Deep labyrinths and the colosseum of stars,
And even claimed their glory for my own,
I feel at last how gaudy excess mars
A line, and find a measured dignity
In that rude speech that was first given to me.