Amid this hot green glowing gloom A word falls with a raindrop's boom... Like baskets of ripe fruit in air The bird-songs seem, suspended where Those goldfinches—the ripe warm lights Peck slyly at them—take quick flights. My feet are feathered like a bird Among the shadows scarcely
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occasions
Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe
Green apples dancing in a wash of sun—
Ripples of sense and fun—
A net of light that wavers as it weaves
The sunlight on the chattering leaves;
The half-dazed sound of feet,
And carriages that ripple in the heat.
The parasols like shadows of the sun
Cast wavering shades that run
Across the laughing faces and across
Hair with a bird-bright gloss.
The swinging greenery casts shadows dark,
Hides me that I may mark
How, buzzing in this dazzling mesh, my soul
Seems hardening it to flesh, and one bright whole.
O sudden feathers have a flashing sheen!
The sun’s swift javelin
The bird-songs seem, that through the dark leaves pass;
And life itself is but a flashing glass.
This poem is in the public domain.
This poem is in the public domain.
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While we celebrate the tradition of American poetry—the Walt Whitmans...