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A.A. George
i have the record playing
And I'm covering my ears
Trying to shut out the thoughts
inside my head
they just whirl and whirl around
like the water in a toilet bowl
drowning out the world
I can't hear the music
And I can't remember why I put it on
Why must there be happiness
When my world just died?
My Daisy, my Daisy,
is gone
For good.
In the spring I asked the daisies
If his words were true,
And the clever, clear-eyed daisies
Always knew.
Now the fields are brown and barren,
Bitter autumn blows,
And of all the stupid asters
Not one knows.
In every daisy in the field
Full thirty morals are concealed,
And though but one of them be mine,
And I forget the twenty-nine,
Yet am I better off by far
Than rich men and their butlers are,
Who ever have of morals none,
While happy I at least have one.
LADY MEADOW,
Coquetting there with noon,
You balance and sway your rustling trees
Like crisp brocade hoop-skirts.
Over your curling gold of buttercups
You powder thick the daisy-petals,
And near the pond.
Iris-lashed, heaven-reflected —
Yet not too near —
You flaunt serenely,
One black cow.
Reclining;
Much as a Royal favorite wears
Her patch.
Beneath the smiling blue of her arch eye.
I climbed up the karaka tree
Into a nest all made of leaves
But soft as feathers.
I made up a song that went on singing all by itself
And hadn’t any words, but got sad at the end.
There were daisies in the grass under the tree.
I said just to try them:
“I’ll bite off your heads and give them to my little children to eat.”
But they didn’t believe I was a bird;
They stayed quite open.
The sky was like a blue nest with white feathers
And the sun was the mother bird keeping it warm.
That’s what my song said: though it hadn’t any words.
Little Brother came up the patch, wheeling his barrow.
I made my dress into wings and kept very quiet.
Then when he was quite near I said: “Sweet, sweet!”
Some day I shall be dead, and pride
Which kept me from your feet,
Shall be the burden of the song
My cold lips shall repeat.
And some day when you too shall find
A pillow in the sod,
Would you then spurn an hour with me
Above—where daisies nod?
The sky was blue, so blue that day
And each daisy white, so white,
O, I knew that no more could rains fall grey
And night again be night.
I knew, I knew. Well, if night is night,
And the grey skies greyly cry,
I have in a book for the candle light,
A daisy dead and dry.
When the green lies over the earth, my dear,
A mantle of witching grace,
When the smile and the tear of the young child year
Dimple across its face,
And then flee, when the wind all day is sweet
With the breath of growing things,
When the wooing bird lights on restless feet
And chirrups and trills and sings
To his lady-love
In the green above,
Then oh! my dear, when the youth’s in the year,
Yours is the face that I long to have near,
Yours is the face, my dear.
But the green is hiding your curls, my dear,
Your curls so shining and sweet;
And the gold-hearted daisies this many a year
To-day I played with flowers,
The yellow, yellow daisies.
The rainbow morning-glories
And lilies pale and grand.
They held their dainty skirts out,
They bowed among the grasses,
And danced a tilting minuet
Shadowy hand in hand.
Klang! Kling! the cow-bells ring
As the cows come home at night.
Slowly they pass over the grass,
Black and brown and white.
Sleepy and slow each one will go
With daisies and clover in her;
At the milking stall she'll give them all
As milk for Kenton's dinner.