Daily Dose

From The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses, edited by Cecily Parks

THIS LAWN A CARPET ALL ALIVE

          THIS Lawn, a carpet all alive
          With shadows flung from leaves--to strive
            In dance, amid a press
          Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields
          Of Worldlings revelling in the fields
            Of strenuous idleness;

          Less quick the stir when tide and breeze
          Encounter, and to narrow seas
            Forbid a moment's rest;
          The medley less when boreal Lights                          
          Glance to and fro, like aery Sprites
            To feats of arms addrest!

          Yet, spite of all this eager strife,
          This ceaseless play, the genuine life
            That serves the stedfast hours,
          Is in the grass beneath, that grows
          Unheeded, and the mute repose
            Of sweetly-breathing flowers.

-- William Wordsworth