There is a solemn wind to-night
That sings of solemn rain;
The trees that have been quiet so long
Flutter and start again.
The slender trees, the heavy trees,
The fruit trees laden and proud,
Lift up their branches to the wind
That cries to them so loud.
The little bushes and the plants
Bow to the solemn sound,
And every tiniest blade of grass
Shakes on the quiet ground.
In the very early morning
Long before Dawn time
I lay down in the paddock
And listened to the cold song of the grass.
Between my fingers the green blades,
And the green blades pressed against my body.
“Who is she leaning so heavily upon me?”
Sang the grass.
“Why does she weep on my bosom,
Mingling her tears with the tears of my mystic lover?
Foolish little earth child!
It is not yet time.
One day I shall open my bosom
And you shall slip in--but not weeping.
Then in the early morning
Long before Dawn time
Today you shall have but little song from me,
For I belong to the sunlight.
This I would not barter for any kingdom.
I am a wheeling swallow,
Blue all over is my delight.
I am a drowsy grass-blade
In the greenest shadow.
O seeded grass, you army of little men
Crawling up the long slope with quivering, quick blades of steel:
You who storm millions of graves, tiny green tentacles of Earth,
Interlace yourselves tightly over my heart,
And do not let me go:
For I would lie here forever and watch with one eye
The pilgrimaging ants in your dull, savage jungles,
The while with the other I see the stiff lines of the slope
Break in mid-air, a wave surprisingly arrested,
And above them, wavering, dancing, bodiless, colourless, unreal,
The long thin lazy fingers of the heat.
A gray day and quiet,
With slow clouds of gray,
And in dull air a cloud that falls, falls
All day.
The naked and stiff branches
Of oak, elm, thorn,
In the cold light are like men aged and
Forlorn.
Only a gray sky,
Grass, trees, grass again,
And all the air a cloud that drips, drips,
All day.
Lovely the lonely
Bare trees and green grass--
Lovelier now the last hours of slow winter
Slowly pass.
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;
There is a place of grass
With daisies like white pools,
Or shining islands in a sea
Of brightening waves.
Swallows, darting, brush
The waves of gentle green,
As though a wide still lake it were,
Not living grass.
Evening draws over all,
Grass and flowers and sky,
And one rich bird prolongs the sweet
Of day on the edge of dark.
The grass is dim, the stars
Lean down the height of heaven;
And the trees, listening in all their leaves,
Scarce-breathing stand.
How strange that grass should sing--
Grass is so still a thing....
And strange the swift surprise of snow
So soft it falls and slow.
The faint lose faith
When in the tomb their all is laid,
And there returns
No echoing of weal or woe.
The strong hope on,
They see the clods close over head,
The grass grow green.
No word is said.
And yet —
A little world within the world
Are we,
Daily our hearts' high yearnings fade,
Are buried !
New ones are made, —
Are crucified !
And yet —
All essences of sweetness from the white
Warm day go up in vapor, when the dark
Comes down. Ascends the tune of meadow-lark,
Ascends the noon-time smell of grass, when night
Takes sunlight from the world, and gives it ease.
Mysterious wings have brushed the air ; and light
Float all the ghosts of sense and sound and sight ;
The silent hive is echoing the bees.
So stir my thoughts at this slow, solemn time.
Now only is there certainty for me
When all the day's distilled and understood.
Now light meets darkness : now my tendrils climb
In this vast hour, up the living tree,
Where gloom foregathers, and the stern winds brood.
We had to wait for the heat to pass,
And I was lying on the grass,
While Mother sat outside the door,
And I saw how many stars there were.
Beyond the tree, beyond the air,
And more and more were always there.
So many that I think they must
Be sprinkled on the sky like dust.
A dust is coming through the sky!
And I felt myself begin to cry.
So many of them and so small,
Suppose I cannot know them all.
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!