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| I AM Ariel freed of a master; | |
| I am Puck lacking Oberon’s ban; | |
| When the lotus is ripe, hark my Pandean pipe | |
| For I’m Peter the godchild of Pan. | |
| I am Iris, my brush is a rainbow; | 5 |
| Endymion awakened am I; | |
| In the breast of the tree Hamadryad I be— | |
| With Sequoia I tickle the sky! | |
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| In the orchard I hang my round beacons— | |
| Ah, Calypso, less potent thy lute! | 10 |
| And men come to seize and lean strip my trees, | |
| For I’m nectar that sweetens the fruit. | |
| My breath have I blown on the melon: | |
| When the honey bee, laden, starts home | |
| I follow his tracks, leave my kiss on his wax: | 15 |
| The poppy I’ve sprinkled with chrome. | |
| |
| I mask me in gold in the wheat-fields, | |
| And I laugh at the reaper’s sure tread— | |
| The sheaves are alined, it is me they would bind: | |
| I am soul of the grain, I am bread. | 20 |
| In autumn men seek me in vineyards; | |
| The purple which lures them is mine— | |
| “The capture is nigh; quick, the press!” is their cry: | |
| I am blood of the grape, I am wine. | |
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| O, I’m secret of life-giving rivers; | 25 |
| I am balm that exhales from Health’s cave: | |
| Consumed in each kernel, I live on eternal, | |
| I am Master of Life, I’m its Slave. | |
| From the battlements of the Sierra | |
| The Pandean pipe I swing free, | 30 |
| And my far-floating tune, in the stillness of noon, | |
| Weaves a spell from the peaks to the sea. | |
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