Psalm lv. 6.
I ask not wings
That I may flee to bright and far off isles,
Where nature ever smiles,
Those isles of palms and flower-embroidered springs,
Painters pourtray, and the young poet sings.
Not wings to find
Myself above my fellows proudly free
To roam o’er mount and sea,
My body as ethereal as my mind,
And my sole mate the bold unfettered wind.
Nor wings I crave,
To soar self-wafted where the planets shine,
And there no more divine
Aught of the ills humanity must brave,
Sorrow and pain, with their fierce cure the grave.
O not for pride,
Or power, or revelling ease my spirit sings,
“Give, give me wings.”
The isles may bloom unseen, the stars abide
In unshared quiet, and the winds untried.
Only from crime,
And vanity, and the bewildering maze
Of the perverse world’s ways,
Would I escape; but ah! the realm sublime
That these inhabit not what wings may climb?
No eagle’s plume,
Nor ev’n the quicker pinion of the dove,
May reach that land of love;
The world that lies beyond the desolate tomb,
A glory guarded by encircling gloom.
Yet, there are wings,
Can flutter towards its confines even here;
Faith, that despises fear,
Hope, that an olive-branch from mercy brings,
And love, that trembles oft, yet trembling, upward springs!
(Mary Jane Jewsbury)
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