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, 1787–1900. Ed. Edmund Clarence Stedman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900.

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