Field Elm

Famous quotes containing the words field and/or elm:

    Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
    Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
    Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
    Into the school where the scholar is studying;
    Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
    Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plough his field or gathering his
    grain;
    So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
    Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

    I want to celebrate these elms which have been spared by the plague, these survivors of a once flourishing tribe commemorated by all the Elm Streets in America. But to celebrate them is to be silent about the people who sit and sleep underneath them, the homeless poor who are hauled away by the city like trash, except it has no place to dump them. To speak of one thing is to suppress another.
    Lisel Mueller (b. 1924)