Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of Home: IV. YouthLying in the Grass
Edmund Gosse (18491928)B
I see the world through hot air as through glass,
And by my face sweet lights and colors pass.
I watch three mowers mowing, as I lie:
With brawny arms they sweep in harmony.
Rich glowing color on bare throat and head,
My heart would leap to watch them, were I dead!
I seem to move with them in harmony,—
A fourth is mowing, and that fourth am I.
The young men whistling as their great arms sweep,
And all the perfume and sweet sense of sleep,
The dreamy nightingale that hardly sings,
And all the lassitude of happy things,
That gushes through my veins a languid flood,
And feeds my spirit as the sap a bud.
A dark-green beech wood rises, still and fair,
A white path winding up it like a stair.
And clean white apron on her gown of red,—
Her even-song of love is but half-said:
Her cheeks are redder than a wild blush-rose:
They climb up where the deepest shadows close.
I watch his rough hands meet beneath her hair,
Their broken speech sounds sweet to me like prayer.
And romp and struggle with the new-mown hay;
Their clear high voices sound from far away.
They dig themselves warm graves and yet are glad;
Their muffled screams and laughter make me mad!
Unseen, like wind, to take them by the hair,
And gently make their rosy cheeks more fair.
And sudden whims and innocent ecstasies;
What godhead sparkles from their liquid eyes!
That Tuscan potters fashioned in old days,
And colored like the torrid earth ablaze,
Through ancient forests wandering undismayed,
And fluting hymns of pleasure unafraid.
A strong man feels to watch the tender flight
Of little children playing in his sight;
Come drifting down upon us from above,
In watching how their limbs and features move.
I only wish to live my life, and find
My heart in unison with all mankind.
That trembles on the horizon’s primrose-bar,—
A microcosm where all things living are.
Should come behind and take away my breath,
I should not rise as one who sorroweth;
Full of desire and young delight and glee,
And why should men be sad through loss of me?
The young moon shines from her bright window through:
The mowers are all gone, and I go too.