I Well, mind, here we have our little son beside us: a little diversion before breakfast! Come, we'll walk down the road till the bacon will be frying. We might better be idle? A poem might come of it? Oh, be useful. Save annoyance to Flossie and besides -- the wind! It's cold. It blows our old pants out! It makes us shiver! See the heavy trees shifting their weight before it. Let us be trees, an old house, a hill with grass on it! The baby's arms are blue. Come, move! Be quieted! II So. We'll sit here now and throw pebbles into this water-trickle. Splash the water up! (Splash it up, Sonny!) Laugh! Hit it there deep under the grass. See it splash! Ah, mind, see it splash! It is alive! Throw pieces of broken leaves into it. They'll pass through. No! Yes -- Just! Away now for the cows! But -- It's cold! It's getting dark. It's going to rain. No further! III Oh then, a wreath! Let's refresh something they used to write well of. Two fern plumes. Strip them to the mid-rib along one side. Bind the tips with a grass stem. Bend and intertwist the stalks at the back. So! Ah! now we are crowned! Now we are a poet! Quickly! A bunch of little flowers for Flossie -- the little ones only: a red clover, one blue heal-all, a sprig of bone-set, one primrose, a head of Indian tobacco, this magenta speck and this little lavender! Home now, my mind! -- Sonny's arms are icy, I tell you -- and have breakfast! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LITTLE ELF-MAN by JOHN KENDRICK BANGS TROUBLE IN DE KITCHEN by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE HILL WIFE: LONELINESS by ROBERT FROST JAFFAR by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT CHANGED by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW |