Come fingered as a friend, O Death! Unfrock me, flesh and bone. These frills of smile and moan, These laces, traces, all unpin! These veins that net me in, This ever lassoing breath, Remove from me, If here is aught to free! To know these hills, nor wait for feet! O, Earth, to be thy child at last! Thy roads all mine, and no white gate Inevitably fast. To enter where thy banquets are When storms are called to feast; And find thy hidden pantry stair When Spring with thee would guest; Into thine attic windows step From humbled Himalays, And round thy starry cornice creep Waylaying deities! Though for my hand Space hold out spheres like roses, and Like country lanes her orbits blow, My Earth, I know, If thou be green, and blossom still, That I must downward go; Leave stars to keep House as they will; The winds to walk or turn and sleep, Seas to spare or kill; Behind my back shall sunsets burn Bereft of my concern; Each wonder past Shall feed my haste, Till I have paused as now Beneath a bending orchard bough, -- An April apple bough Where southern waters creep. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TRANSPOSITIONS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 130 by ALFRED TENNYSON MY SHIP by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN IF I GROW OLD by ETHEL BERRY ALLEN ZEUS TOO IS A VICTIM by ASCLEPIADES OF SAMOS ON THE BACKWARDNESS OF THE SPRING 1771 by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |