FROM choked morass I leap and run As free as heaven's stars or sun, And when the fisher gets him home About his lair I nimbly roam, Unthreatened by his envious eye That wishes water-folk to die, And then like darting dace I go Soaring, swerving, high and low. The wind though scarce a ghostly stir Bears my small torch, that some aver Is but a vapour's fevered sheen Or lanterned fly like him in green Whose light now glistens on the road As mewling cat-owls wheel abroad; But those who've seen me, make reply "Nor marish-breath nor lanterned fly." And this my holiday I will take Though churls and fools rush in my wake And like a thistle's down would seize A God that takes his evening ease! So Hodge and Ha' pence lured askance See me past further sagbeds dance, And squashing where the black streams crawl Are left with working mire to brawl. On ashy clouds if I've a mind I hover over human kind And fling my summer lightnings till The heartiest drunkard's tongue is still; I, with the bright-haired comets kin, Baited for a harlequin, I, spirit fire that none can quell, Content in swamps despised to dwell! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ADAM WEIRAUCH by EDGAR LEE MASTERS WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY by ROBERT AYTON THE TEMPER (1) by GEORGE HERBERT IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 2 by ALFRED TENNYSON NUPTIAL SONG by JOHN BYRNE LEICESTER WARREN THE LAY OF THE LEVITE by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN |