Make me a poem of sweet words That dart and flash like mating birds When rising sap of early spring Sets all the leaves to gossiping; Make me a poem whose grand lines Shall catch the tune of wind-swept pines, Or some deep note that satisfies When thunder rolls across the skies; Make me a poem, beauty-wrought, In whose silk snare a truth is caught, Decked out at last to catch our eyes Like some bright bird of paradise; Make me a poem that shall raise My questing soul to nobler ways, And call me with its trumpet tone To higher paths than I have known. |