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Under the Tree

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Excerpt from Under the Tree

It moved and never seemed to stop. I think it must be tied with Chains And something pulls it from the top.

It never has come down again, And every time I look to see, The sky is always slipping back And getting far away from me.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

99 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1922

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About the author

Elizabeth Madox Roberts

28 books11 followers
Kentucky novelist and poet.

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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Profile Image for Perry Whitford.
1,956 reviews76 followers
April 6, 2015
Rural poems of the American South, written with such childishly simple perceptions, meters and rhythms that it is impossible to believe that they were written by an adult, though the author was forty years of age when they were published.

Don't mistake the simplicity for a lack of quality though. The collection is actually something of a small delight, even if each of the poems could have been written on the back of a postage stamp after no more than a few minute's thought. Their guileless lack of sophistication is actually their strength.

The poems are either about the rustic charms of the farmstead ('The Cornfield', 'The Strange tree', 'Water Noises'), its animals ('Milking Time', 'Horse', 'The Hens'), the family ('Dick and Will', 'Father's Story', 'The Grandmother'), or about churchgoing and other simple bucolic pursuits ('The Pulpit', 'Mr. Bennybaker at Church', 'The Circus'). All are quite delightful.

The poems are all short and sweet, many having as little as eight syllables in the meter or verses of a single couplet. I think this example represents the whole very well:

The Rabbit

When they said the time to hide was mine,
I hid back under a thick grape vine.

And while I was still for the time to pass,
A little gray thing came out of the grass.

He hopped his way through the melon bed
And sat down close by a cabbage head.

He sat down close where I could see,
And his big still eyes looked hard at me,

His big eyes bursting out of the rim,
And I looked back very hard at him.
Profile Image for Carissa.
49 reviews
May 28, 2012


Simple little poems from a Kentucky native. Nothing too deep, but I was intrigued by how they reflect the local culture even now (especially the bit about the nuns ;)
1 review
March 4, 2012
One of the best collection of poems ... Enjoyed by all ages ... Not just children !!!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews

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