TAKE down your golden wings now from their hook behind the door. The wind comes calling from the west, and you must fly once more. Oh, mine are grown too old to fly, my crooked wings and gray, But yours are glad with ruffled gold, and you must fly away. I found you far across the moors beneath a thorny-tree: The eyes of you were wide as stars above a breathless sea: But frail you were and faint you were, and nowise gay and glad Save for the leaping golden wings your slender shoulders had. And suddenly I led you home, and cherished you. I wrought Green robes like April willow-leaves. I coursed the hills and sought Strange jewel-seeds and pearly flow'rs to weave about your hair. Beneath my hand you bloomed and grew, fair as a flame is fair. I hung your wings behind the door lest you should fly away: (They being all of bubbling gold, but mine, -- ah, withered gray!) I hung your wings behind the door, for secretly I knew Your golden wings, your wayward wings, they bode their time for you. And now, the cottage by the wood, its doorways shall be dark. You were its sunshine and its spring; its south wind and its lark. Your bed beneath the window-sill must lie unwarmed, unpressed; The briar-rose may bear no more her star-flowers for your breast. The dragon-flies across the pools may dart and drowse all day, Sapphire and stinging emerald, with slit wings silver-gray; The rabbit up the glen may leap, the rare thrush ring his chime: -- But you will never come again for noon or twilight-time. -- Take down your golden wings now from their hook behind the door, And tie them tight against your back, the bright thongs crossed before. The bright thongs strained across your breast to keep them straight and true, The golden wings, the wandering wings, that woke my love for you. The west wind calls, "Come forth! Come forth!" Look once within my eyes. Tell me, "I know you loved me well, but now the whole world cries!" Tell me, "You have been kind to me, but ah, I cannot stay. A million miles of sea and sun, they whisper me away." That is enough. I ask no more. I grow too gray to fly. I can but walk the sheltered woods to watch the year go by. The little cottage, dawn and dusk, shall keep me warm. And you -- That I must give you back your wings too well, too well I knew! O Face of Youth that lit my dusk! O Hand too light to hold! How should you wait? The west wind cries, who cried to me of old. Lean down. I tie the broad bright thongs to keep them true and straight: Your golden wings, your windy wings, that leave me desolate. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VICTOR RAFOLSKI ON ART by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE ROSE AND THE BEE by SARA TEASDALE BATTLE SONG by EBENEZER ELLIOTT FIFTY FAGGOTS by PHILIP EDWARD THOMAS A SOLDIER'S GRAVE by JOHN ALBEE A TURKISH LEGEND by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY by BERNARD BARTON |