DOWN AMONG THE GRASSES
Down—adown among the tall green grasses
By the spring-fed pool,
Where the flowers nod and beckon in the wind that passes—
Nod and beckon like sweet little lassies
Like fair little Hellenic lassies, (glancing with their bright eyes)
Like fair little Hellenic lassies, just turned loose from their classical classes
Like glad little Grecian children just a-coming home from school.
And the dragon-flies in their bright cuirasses
And the crickets that chirrup by rule,
And the clouds floating by in great, white, cumulous masses,
And the small, glad voices, and the flowers and the grasses,
And the sky and the clouds mirrored way down in the pool,
Makes one dream of the old song-sacred Parnassus,
And of the nymph-haunted Hippocrene cool.
And we sigh for the poet’s winged-steed Pegasus
Just to soar away up high!
Just to scale those wild aerial passes,
Just to rise above those great, white, cumulous, cloud masses,
And to plunge and tumble down the blue vaults of the sky.
Away up above us—in those splendid cloud-cities!
With their portals of gold and their turrets so fair,
We seem to hear angels a-piping their wonderful ditties,
And we long to be there—oh, we long to be there.
White Wings! White Wings! Come bear us away,
Come bear us away, o’er river, o’er mountain and plain.
Oh, bear us away to that land of tall palms and green sassafrasses,
And then—oh, then, bear us back here to this wild, sweet, pretty valley again.