As for meöfor me, the grass grew longer, and more sorrowful, and the trees were surfaced like flesh, and girls were no longer to be treated lightly but were creatures of commanding sadness, and all journeys through the valley were now made alone, with passion in every bush, and the motions of wind and cloud and stars were suddenly for myself alone, and voices elected me of all men living and called me to deliver the world, and I groaned from solitude, blushed when I stumbled, loved strangers and bread and butter, and made long trips through the rain on my bicycle, stared wretchedly through lighted windows, grinned wryly to think how little I was known, and lived in a state of raging excitement.

-Lee, Laurie
  Cider With Rosie,'Last Days'.

My mind was once the true survey Of all these meadows fresh and gay; And in the greenness of the grass Did see its hopes as in a glass.

-Marvell, Andrew
c.1650^1652  'The Mower's Song' (published1681).

What wondrous life is this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine; The nectarine, and curious peach, Into my hands themselves do reach; Stumbling on melons, as I pass, Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

-Marvell, Andrew
c.1650^1652  'The Garden' (published1681), stanza 5.

Words spoken on the road are heard by snakes in the grass.

-MoYan pseudonym of  Guan Moye
  Red Sorghum (translated by Howard Goldblatt).

We will burn the old grass and the new will grow.

-Pol Pot real name Saloth Sar
c.1975  Quoted inJohn Pilger DistantVoices (1992), section 5.

When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget.

-Rossetti, Christina Georgina
  Goblin Market and Other Poems,'When I Am dead'.

I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

-Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
  Poems,'Sudden Light'.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me workö I am the grass; I cover all.

-Sandburg, Carl
  Cornhuskers,'Grass'.

He looks to me to be in heaven, that manwho sits across from you and listensnear you toyour soft speaking, your laughing lovely: that, I vow, makes the heart leap in my breast; for watching you a moment, speech fails me, my tongue is paralysed, at once a light fire runs beneath my skin, my eyes are blinded, and my ears drumming, the sweat pours down me, and Ishake all over, sallower than grass: I feel as if I'm not far off dying.

-Sappho   7c
D L Page (ed) Lyrica Graeca Selecta (1968), no.199 (translated by M L West).

Daisy and Lily, Lazy and silly, Walk by the shore of the wan grass sea,ö Talking once more 'neath a swan-bosomed tree.

-Sitwell, Dame Edith Louisa
  Fa c° ade 'Valse'.

For seasons change, And order, truth, and beauty range, Adjust, attract, and fill: The grass the polyanthus cheques; And polished porphyry reflects, By the descending rill.

-Smart, Christopher
ADORATION1763  A Song to David, stanza 52.

Pigeons on the grass alas.

-Stein, Gertrude
  Four Saints inThreeActs, act 3, sc.2.

Two voices are there: one is of the deep; It learns the storm-clouds thundrous melody, Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep: And one is of an old half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass isgreen, lakes damp, and mountains steep And,Wordsworth, both are thine.

-Stephen,J(ames) K(enneth)
  Lapsus Calami,'A Sonnet'.

And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.

-Swift,Jonathan
  Gulliver'sTravels,'A Voyage to Brobdingnag', ch.7.

   Autumn is desolation in the plot Of a thousand acres, where these memories grow From the inexhaustible bodies that are not Dead, but feed the grass, row after rich row.

-Tate, (John Orley) Allen
  Poems1922^1947,'Ode to the Confederate Dead'.

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, A purer sapphire melts into the sea. 845

-Tennyson
  Maud, pt.1, sect.18, stanza 6, l.649^50.

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs Aboutthelilting houseand happyasthegrasswasgreen.

-Thomas, Dylan Marlais
  'Fern Hill'.

   The last light has gone out of the world, except This moonlight lying on the grass like frost Beyond the brink of the tall elm's shadow.

-Thomas, (Philip) Edward
  'Liberty'.

We were a people taut for war; the hills Were no harder, the thin grass Clothed them more warmly than the coarse Shirts our small bones.

-Thomas, R(onald) S(tuart)
  'Welsh History'.

Please Walk on the Grass

-Thompson,Tommy
  Message on a sign erected inToronto's Edwards Gardens, which attracted national and then international attention for its 'hands-on'approach to public parks.