1593. The Flight of the Heart by Dora Read Goodale. Stedman, Edmund Clarence, ed. 1900. An American Anthology, 1787-1900

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

1593. The Flight of the Heart

By Dora Read Goodale


THE HEART soars up like a bird
From a nest of care;
Up, up to a larger sky,
To a softer air.
No eye can measure its flight	5
And no hand can tame;
It mounts in beauty and light,
In music and flame.
Of all the changes of Time
There is none like this;	10
The heart soars up like a bird
At the stroke of bliss.

The heart soars up like a bird,
But its wings soon tire;
Enough of rapture and song,	15
The cloud and the fire!
Its look, the look of a king—
Of a slave, its birth,
The poor, tired, impotent thing
Sinks back to the earth.	20
And the mother spreads her lap,
And she lulls its pain:
“Oh, thou who sighed for the sun,
Art thou mine again?”