Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SWING, by JOHN FREEMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SWING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It was like floating in a blessed dream to roam
Last Line: So wide a sky, so great a tree.
Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Family Life; Fields; Home; Trees; Relatives; Pastures; Meadows; Leas


IT was like floating in a blessed dream to roam
Across green meadows, far from home.
With only trees and quivering sky to hedge the sight,
Dazzling the eyes with strange delight.
Such wide, wide fields I had never seen, and never dreamed
Could be; and wonderful it seemed
To wander over green and under green and run
Unwatched even of the shining sun.

One tree there was that held a wrinkled creaking bough
Far over the grass, hanging low;
And a swing from it hanging drew us near and made
New brightness beneath that doming shade.
For there my sisters swung long hours delightedly,
And there delighted clambered I;
And all our voices shrilled as one when up we flung
And into the stinging sharp leaves swung.
Then in a garden dense with bramble and sweet flowers
Where honeysuckle a new sweetness pours,
We sat and ate and drank. Well I remember how
We were all shaded by one bough
Bending with red fruit over our uplifted eyes,
Teasing our well-watched covetousness.

And then we went back happy to the empty swing,
But I was tired of everything
Except the grass and trees and the wide shadows there
Widening slowly everywhere.
It was like swinging in a solemn dream to roam
In a strange air, far from home—
Until I saw the shadows suddenly wake and move,
And float, float down from above.
Then I ran quickly back, round the large gloomy trees,
O with what shivering unease!
And stumbled where they waited, and was far too glad,
Finding them, to be afraid or sad.
—Then waited an unforgetting year once more to see
So wide a sky, so great a tree.





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