The speaker longs to be hidden and held by grass—its seeding heads, shaking stems, and soft blades. He wants not just to rest in it but to share its life: to drink its sap, listen to its rustling, and link his restless mind to its calm, unthinking senses. The mood is intimate and dreamy, with a quiet ache beneath it. Grass becomes a living presence that can soothe his “peevish thought” and draw him into the dark, rooted unconscious of the earth. By the final stanza, this wish turns toward death, but gently: he imagines a time when his body is still and the grass dances over him, and his spirit still hears it in the wind. At heart, it is a longing for peace, for belonging to the natural world, and for release from the burden of being a separate, thinking self.
Grasses — Summary
O cover me, long gentle grasses, Cover me with your seeding heads, Cover me with your shaking limbs, Cover me with your light soft hands, Cover me as the delicious long wind passes Over you and me, green grasses.
'Tis of your blood I would be drinking, To your soft shrilling listening now, And your thin fingers peering through At the deep forests of the sky. O satisfy my peevish thought past thinking, My sense with your sense linking.
Already are your brown roots creeping Around the roots of my mind's mind, Into the darkness hidden within The rayed dark of unconsciousness; And your long stems in a bright wind are leaping Over me uneasily sleeping.
O cover me, long gentle grasses, As one day over a quiet flesh You will shake, shake and dance and sing; And body too still and spirit astir Will hear you in every firm bright wind that passes Over you, loved green grasses.