But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves,
standing alone there, without its friend, its
lover near—for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of
leaves upon it, and twined around it a little
moss,
And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight
in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear
friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of
them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token—it makes me
think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in
Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a
lover, near,
I know very well I could not.
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21.
Music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning—
yet long untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated,
A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health,
with glad notes of day-break I hear,
A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the
tops of immense waves,
A transparent base, shuddering lusciously under and
through the universe,
31*
