WOOD-SONG
by: Josephine Preston Peabody
(1874-1922)
- OVE must
be a fearsome thing
That can bind a maid
- Glad of life as leaves in spring,
- Swift and unafraid.
-
- I could find a heart to sing
- Death and darkness, praise or blame;
- But before that name,
- Heedfully, oh, heedfully
- Do I lock my breast;
- I am silent as a tree,
- Guardful of the nest.
-
- Ah, my passing Woodlander,
- Heard you any note?
- Would you find a leaf astir
- From a wilding throat?
-
- Surely, all the paths defer
- Unto such a gentle quest.
- Would you take the nest?
- Follow where the sun-motes are!
- Truly t is a sorrow
- I must bid you fare so far;
- Speed you, and good-morrow!
"Wood-Song" is reprinted
from An American Anthology, 17871900. Ed. Edmund
Clarence Stedman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900. |
MORE POEMS BY JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY |
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