THE cool of an oak’s unchequered
shade
Falls on me as
I lie in deep grass
Which rushes upward, blade beyond blade,
While higher the darting
grass-flowers pass
Piercing the blue with their crocketed spires
And waving flags, and the
ragged fires
Of the
sorrel’s cresset — a green, brave town
Vegetable, new in
renown.
Over the tree’s edge, as over a
mountain
Surges the
white of the moon,
A
cloud comes up like the surge of a fountain,
Pressing round and low at
first, but soon
Heaving and piling a round white dome.
How lovely it is to be at home
Like an insect in the
grass
Letting life
pass.
There’s a scent of clover crept
through my hair
From
the full resource of some purple dome
Where that lumbering bee, who can hardly
bear
His burden
above me, never has clomb.
But not even the scent of insouciant
flowers
Makes pause
the hours.
Down the valley roars a townward
train.
I hear it
through the grass
Dragging the links of my shortening chain
Southwards,
alas!