Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WITH THE LINNETS, by CORA RANDALL FABBRI


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WITH THE LINNETS, by                    
First Line: I am lying in the grasses
Last Line: That this peace will never pass.
Subject(s): Linnets


I AM lying in the grasses
Underneath the cooling trees;
Overhead the linnet passes,
Drifting on a summer breeze.
Hardly singing, for the silence
Sweeter is than any song,
Like a dream of unfound islands
Where white Peace reigns all day long.

Yes, the place so very still is
That the dew one almost hears
Dropping softly in the lilies—
Fleet, like little children's tears.
I forget, among the grasses—
Ah, so easy thus to do!—
That this summer sweetness passes,
And this heart-peace passes too.

Birds, I watch you in the shadows,
And I see you fleeting by,
Springing from the sweet green meadows
Till you find the sweeter sky.
Had I wings, O linnet yonder,
Like your fleet brown wings unfurled,
I would rise with you, and wander
Till I had forgot the world.

Fleet across the hill-sides peaceful,
With a song for interlude,
Rest, with brown wings closed and easeful,
In some leafy solitude.
With no fear of any sorrow
Brooding through a moonless night,
With no thought of any morrow
That will mar to-day's delight.

So, forget the world men live in,
(And I lived in yesterday!)
Weary men that doubt of heaven,
Since God will not hear them pray.
Evil men, in all succeeding.
Since their hands are full of gold;
Hungry men, that none are heeding,
Though they stand out in the cold.

I would soar so near to heaven,
I would doubt that such things are;
And the solemn church-yard even
Would not grieve me from afar;
I would see it through Spring flowers,
With the joy that flowers bring,
And between the twilight hours
Pause above some grave to sing. ...

Oh, you happy birds, fly onward,
But I cannot follow yet;
Only will my dreams fly sunward,
And forget what you forget.
Only, where this place so still is,
I can lie among the grass,
Thinking, with the happy lilies,
That this peace will never pass.





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