Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Up in the Hills

Helen Louise Birch

THE EARTH smells old and warm and mellow, and all things lie at peace.

I too serenely lie here under the white-oak tree, and know the splendid flight of hours all blue and gay, sun-drenched and still.

The dogs chase rabbits through the hazel-brush;

I hear now close at hand their eager cries, now swift receding into the distance, leaving a-trail behind them in the clear sweet air shrill bursts of joy.

There’s something almost drowsy in that waning clamor;

It brings the stillness nearer and a sense of being bodily at one with the old warm earth,

Blessedly at one with the fragrant laughing sun-baked earth,

At one with its sly delightful wicked old laughter.