| |
| I FLUNG my soul to the air like a falcon flying. | |
| I said, “Wait on, wait on, while I ride below! | |
| I shall start a heron soon | |
| In the marsh beneath the moon— | |
| A strange white heron rising with silver on its wings, | 5 |
| Rising and crying | |
| Wordless, wondrous things; | |
| The secret of the stars, of the world’s heart-strings | |
| The answer to their woe. | |
| Then stoop thou upon him, and grip and hold him so!” | 10 |
| |
| My wild soul waited on as falcons hover. | |
| I beat the reedy fens as I trampled put. | |
| I heard the mournful loon | |
| In the marsh beneath the moon. | |
| And then, with feathery thunder, the bird of my desire | 15 |
| Broke from the cover | |
| Flashing silver fire. | |
| High up among the stars I saw his pinions spire. | |
| The pale clouds gazed aghast | |
| As my falcon stooped upon him, and gript and held him fast. | 20 |
| |
| My soul dropped through the air—with heavenly plunder?— | |
| Gripping the dazzling bird my dreaming knew? | |
| Nay! but a piteous freight, | |
| A dark and heavy weight | |
| Despoiled of silver plumage, its voice forever stilled— | 25 |
| All of the wonder | |
| Gone that ever filled | |
| Its guise with glory. O bird that I have killed, | |
| How brilliantly you flew | |
| Across my rapturous vision when first I dreamed of you! | 30 |
| |
| Yet I fling my soul on high with new endeavor, | |
| And I ride the world below with a joyful mind. | |
| I shall start a heron soon | |
| In the marsh beneath the moon— | |
| A wondrous silver heron its inner darkness fledges! | 35 |
| I beat forever | |
| The fens and the sedges. | |
| The pledge is still the same—for all disastrous pledges, | |
| All hopes resigned! | |
| My soul still flies above me for the quarry it shall find! | 40 |
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