 | The poetical works of Lucy Larcom |  |
209
FLOWER OF GRASS.
The gracefulness that homely life takes onWhen love is at its root, you saw in her;
No color, but soft tints in lovely blur;
A charm which, if so much as named, was gone,
Like light out of a passing cloud. Yet when
The fairer faces bloomed on you alone,
Without the softening of her presence, then
Into their look had something garish grown;
Some tenderness had faded from the air,—
A loss so subtle and so undefined
The thought was blamed that hinted loss was there.
The nature of such souls is to be blind
To self and to self-seeking: let them blend
Their life as harmony and atmosphere
With other lives—let them but have a friend
Whose merit they may set off or endear,
And they are gladder than in any guess
Or dream of their own separate happiness.
Earth were not sweet without such souls as hers:
Even of the rose and lily might we tire;
She was the flower of grass, that only stirs
To soothe the air, and nothing doth require
But to forget itself in doing good;—
One of life's lowly, saintly multitude.
| The poetical works of Lucy Larcom | |