Secret World
I have a secret world of my own,
A porcelain place where none may come;
For I have a fear that intruders may
Scare the creatures of my world away;
The gentle beings that have gathered there,
All the hunted things from earth and air;
The shy sensitive moon-dappled fawns,
The speckled hares and lily-plumed swans,
With frail flowers that men crush under foot
Who trample the earth in hunting boot.
How fearless my creatures resteth there
Gently breathing the blossom-sweet air;
For the air holds unending perfume,
Of all field flowers and all trees that bloom;
Such rare songs my wild birds sing for me
(Bright feather jewels on the ever-green tree);
No gentle tree on those lands shall know
The stabbing pain of a steel axe blow.
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Therefore my forests grow strangely fair,
Ever-lasting fruits can be gathered there.
It is such a land of streaming light,
Clear star and moon-shine lamplight the night.
(But oh such frailness - butterfly wings),
Peopled with all the sensitive things.
One must tread delicately on those lands,
Its palace is built on shifting sands;
And so fragile, one cruel, look or word -
Would utterly smash that porcelain world.
∼ Juliette de Bairacli Levy ∼
From "The Willow Wreath" - Roses Poems