SHE sits on the recreation
ground
Under an oak whose yellow buds dot the pale
blue sky.
The young grass twinkles in the
wind, and the sound
Of the wind in the knotted buds in a
canopy.
So sitting under the knotted
canopy
Of the wind, she is lifted and carried away as
in
a balloon
Across the insensible void, till she stoops to
see
The
sandy desert beneath her, the dreary
platoon.
She knows the waste all dry beneath
her, in one
place
Stirring with earth-coloured life,
ever turning and
stirring.
But never the motion has a
human face
Nor sound, save intermittent machinery
whirring.
And so again, on the recreation
ground
She alights a stranger, wondering, unused to
the
scene;
Suffering at sight of the children playing
around,
Hurt at the chalk-coloured tulips, and the even
—
ing-green.