In the Morning

Chapter 45: DANDELION.

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About This Book

A sequence of lyric poems that meditates on dawn, nature, and spiritual feeling, often deploying mountain, forest, and seaside imagery to probe grief, consolation, and renewal. Poems move among quiet pastorals, occasional and domestic verse, devotional hymns, translations, and lighter nonsense pieces, following seasonal rhythms and holiday observances. The voice shifts between elegiac introspection and bright affirmation, favoring sensory detail—birdsong, running water, sunlight—and a consolatory outlook that finds moral and emotional sustenance in simple scenes and ritual moments.

DANDELION.

A dandelion in a meadow grew

Among the waving grass and cowslips yellow;

Dining on sunshine, breakfasting on dew,

He was a right contented little fellow.

Each morn his golden head he lifted straight,

To catch the first sweet breath of coming day;

Each evening closed his sleepy eyes, to wait

Until the long, cool night had passed away.

One afternoon, in sad, unquiet mood,

I paused beside this tiny, bright-faced flower,

And begged that he would tell me, if he could,

The secret of his joy through sun and shower.

He looked at me with open eyes, and said:

“I know the sun is somewhere shining clear,

And when I cannot see him overhead,

I try to be a little sun, right here!”