The growing idleness of summer grass

With its frail kites of furious butterflies

Requests the lemonade of simple praise

In scansion gentler than my hammock swings

And rituals no more upsetting than a

Black maid shaking linen as she sings

The plain notes of some Protestant hosanna—

Since I lie idling from the thought in things—

Or so they should, until I hear the cries

Of two small children hunting yellow wings,

Who break my Sabbath with the thought of sin.

Brother and sister, with a common pin,

Frowning like serious lepidopterists.

The little surgeon pierces the thin eyes.

Crouched on plump haunches, as a mantis prays

She shrieks to eviscerate its abdomen.

The lesson is the same. The maid removes

Both prodigies from their interest in science.

The girl, in lemon frock, begins to scream

As the maimed, teetering thing attempts its flight.

She is herself a thing of summery light,

Frail as a flower in this blue August air,

Not marked for some late grief that cannot speak.

The mind swings inward on itself in fear

Swayed towards nausea from each normal sign.

Heredity of cruelty everywhere,

And everywhere the frocks of summer torn,

The long look back to see where choice is born,

As summer grass sways to the scythe’s design.

Summary

The poem opens with an adult who is sitting in a hammock in his garden enjoying a calm Sunday morning. A little girl and boy break into the persona’s relaxation with their boisterous laughter and playful nature. Their main goal is to torment the harmless creatures of Nature. Their cruel game annoys the speaker, and his Sunday rest is spoilt as he reflects on the notion of original sin. Based on what he is witnessing, he wonders at the strange behaviour of the children and at what point people begin to make conscious choices to do good and evil. He wonders at the cruelty of these young children and the odd nature of their actions. It is Sunday and this is traditionally a day of rest and a day for religion. This highlights the inappropriateness of the children’s violent behaviour. The persona’s day starts peacefully. It is a leisurely morning, but the maid interrupts this silence as she sings a hymn. The children’s unexpected shouts are an undesirable disturbance to his peacefulness. He hears their screams of excitement, and then he sees them in action. They are innocent but hold a ruthless curiosity as they interact with Nature. The children are without feeling as they gore the eyes of the butterfly then try to “eviscerate the abdomen.” The maid stops their rough game, but the angelic little girl screams in angry protest. This is paradoxical that such an innocent little child can be capable of such savage behaviours.

The persona notes that the bird and the little girl are similar. They are both vulnerable and he believes she is safe for the moment, but he trembles at the thought that she may be violated in the same way by some cruel person in the future. He further thinks about the nature of man to be cruel. The persona believes that this is the heredity of cruelty and that everyone has the capability to act in an inhumane way. Of course, each person can choose to be good or bad. The speaker thinks about the choices that one makes and the way that these choices affect one’s behaviour. He looks at the history of violence, our moral standards and our mortality and concludes that Man’s entire life is subject to an external design. He learns that man is born with a sinful nature, lives a life that is uncertain, and dies without notice.

Analysis

Stanza 1 begins with the imagery of the “idleness of the summer grass.” One could look at this as an imagery of calm and serenity and one which the persona is enjoying. Summer denotes a bright vibrant image with the lazy grass being useless. The lemonade in line 3 adds to the setting of the summer as the poet refers to the summer grass requesting “lemonade of simple praise” maybe as a reward for the calm and serenity it brings. In line 2, the poet introduces the butterflies and their frail and furious actions. This is an alliteration of the “f” sounds and one can imagine the fluttering of the wings as a gentle breeze. This is contrasting to the furious way that the wings flutter. Butterflies are delicate creatures, but this does not prevent them from being swift. All this calm pervades the atmosphere, and the speaker continues to enjoy this. The early disruption to the solitude is the singing of the black maid. Stanza 1 also shows a unified imagery as the reader can identify:

• Visual Imagery – the summer grass
• Auditory Imagery – maid singing the Protestant Hosanna
• Kinesthetic Imagery – The persona hanging
• Gustatory Imagery – lemonade taste

Stanza 2 begins with “or so they should.” This suggests that there will be a change in the tone or mood of the poem. The cries of the two young children (boy and girl) permeate the atmosphere. The speaker is upset as the noise disturbs his Sabbath with the thought of sin. He observes that these children have a “common pin” and are frowning with concentration as they seek the butterfly. The common pin in this case is indicative of the fact that the cruelty of mankind comes in small forms as well. The children are as curious as scientists who have studied these butterflies they seek, and they use their knowledge with the skill of a surgeon to harm the butterflies. The metaphor in this line is strong because these children act with precision as they proceed to harm the innocent butterflies. It is ironic that children are meant to be naïve, gentle, and innocent and yet they display such appalling cruelty towards the butterflies. This stanza is devoted to showing the contrast of the innocence of children to the cruel nature they possess. In addition, the speaker draws the reader’s attention to the fact that it is not the adults who cause this harm, but it is the children. “The lesson remains the same” as the reader sees the girl screaming when she is removed from the harm she is causing. She is not hurt or harmed and yet she screams. It is also ironic that it is the predator (girl) who becomes the victim in this stanza. The speaker alludes to the lack of innocence on the part of the children because they choose to disrupt his holy day (Sabbath). This disruption is one that breaks one of the Ten Commandments as their intent was to casually maim or kill the butterfly. He directs this stanza to the inherent nature of mankind to be cruel to those who are helpless. But the reader sees that the speaker does nothing to save the butterfly. It is the black maid who comes to the “rescue” of the butterflies and even to save the Sabbath. Perhaps she understood the helplessness of the butterflies and that they needed to be saved, just like her.

The speaker is outraged with the children because they disturbed his Sabbath. He finds the children’s actions to be savage. The maid can be compared to the wounded butterflies as she is referred to as the maid who sings “the plain notes of some Protestant hosanna.” Religion was a means of escape for the blacks during slavery. As such, the woman sings a “Protestant hosanna” in protest of the cruelty that she faced or to foreshadow the cruelty that the children meted out to the “innocent” butterflies. Perhaps the black maid could empathize with the plight of the butterflies as she too has suffered at the hand of those who proclaim to be the “innocents” in life. The stanza could also hint at the hardships of slavery as she is referred to as a “maid” which is symbolic of the black people working for the white people. It would also imply that she goes to stop the children because it is her duty as the maid to keep the children in check while the adult relaxes. “The lesson is the same” would reiterate this idea as the speaker alludes to the cruelty and the history or cycle of cruelty to the minority in society. The lesson one could take is that humans have the innate tendency to be cruel to others.

The speaker now internalizes what he sees, and he becomes fearful. He continues to describe the thoughts he is having. He is anxious and horrified as to the events as they unfold. He can relate this to the events that are taking place around him daily. He speaks to the heredity of cruelty everywhere. He understands that this history of cruelty is evident in his surroundings. Children live what they learn and so he alludes to the fact that children are as cruel as their parents. The speaker has learned that the world is in a deplorable state because behind the beauty of the summer day and the brightly coloured dress of the innocent child, there is the reality of cruelty. The reality behind this beautiful world is a world where humans are cruel to nature and to mankind. He looks at when a person becomes evil and concludes that this is a choice. The grass is a metaphor for the world and alludes to the destruction of the world just as the grass is struck down by humans.

Themes:

• Original/Ancestral Sin and Free Will
• Growing Up
• Cruelty to Nature
• Man’s Inhumanity to Man
• Religion and Sin
• Mortality