Rebecca's Reading RoomMeeting up with Elizabeth Madox Roberts
This morning, I invite you to linger with a poet who might be unfamiliar: Elizabeth Madox Roberts, born in 1881 in rural Kentucky. Though she became widely known for her modernist novels, she also wrote poetry that carried the cadence of the fields, the garden rows, and the voices of children at play. She lived at a time when the closeness of people to the land was simply a fact of life, when childhood unfolded outdoors, and when attention to the natural world was as ordinary as breathing.
The Rabbit
by Elizabeth Madox Roberts
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.
In “The Rabbit”, Roberts gives us more than a charming rhyme. She records a moment of profound stillness: a child hiding in play, a rabbit appearing from the grass, and a gaze shared between them. Nothing more happens, and yet in that gaze lies a recognition—one creature seeing another, fully present in the moment.
When I read this poem today, I feel Roberts inviting us to slow down and recover the art of attention. We live in a world where distractions multiply and our time is pulled in every direction, yet here is a reminder that to pause and look—really look—is to discover wonder again. The child’s gaze at the rabbit teaches us that attentiveness is a form of love, that nature still waits to meet us if we step outside and give it a chance, and that children, even now, carry within them the same deep curiosity that Roberts witnessed in her own time. Perhaps the real lesson for us is that these small encounters matter. They shape how we see the world, and they remind us that even the simplest rhymes can carry wisdom across generations.
I believe Roberts is teaching us that attention itself is an act of love. To look closely, to notice without hurry, to acknowledge another life—even for a fleeting moment—is to step back into the mystery and beauty of being alive.
Thank you for sharing a Saturday morning moment with me in Rebecca’s Reading Room. May your weekend be filled with small encounters of wonder and stillness.
Rebecca
Elizabeth Madox Roberts (1881–1941) was a Kentucky poet and novelist, best known for her novel “The Time of Man”. Her writing, lyrical yet rooted in realism, explored the bond between people, land, and the ordinary details of daily life. She was part of the Southern Renaissance and admired for bringing a poetic voice to rural experience.
Elizabeth’s poetry collection “Under the Tree” can be found on Gutenberg Press.
#ElizabethMadoxRoberts #Nature #PoetryInTheAfternoon #PoetryInTheEvening #PoetrySalon #TheRabbit
null