A narrow fellow in the grass
A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides. You may have met him -- did you not? His notice sudden is. The grass divides as with a comb, A spotted shaft is seen, And then it closes at your feet And opens further on. He likes a boggy acre, A floor too cool for corn; Yet when a boy and barefoot, I more than once at noon Have passed, I thought, a whiplash Unbraiding in the sun; When, stooping to secure it, It wrinkled and was gone. Several of nature's people I know, and they know me; I feel for them a transport Of cordiality, But never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing And zero at the bone. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)