Madison Cawein

LIKE some wild child that laughs and weeps,

Impatient of its mother’s arms,

The wood brook from the hillside leaps,

Eager to reach the neighboring farms:

Complaining crystal in its throat

It bubbles a protesting note.

The wild-flowers that the forest weaves

To deck it with are thrust aside;

And all the little happy leaves,

That would detain it, are denied:

It must be gone; it does not care;

Away, away, no matter where.

Ah, if it knew what work awaits

Beyond the woodland’s peace and rest,

What toil and soil of man’s estates,

What contact with life’s sorriest—

A different mind it then might keep

And hush its frenzy into sleep.

Make of its trouble there a pool,

A dim circumference filled with sky

And trees, wherein the beautiful

Contemplates silence with a sigh,

As mind communicates with mind

Of intimate things they have in kind.

Encircled of the wood’s repose,

Contentment then to it would give

The peace of lily and of rose,

And love of all wild things that live;

And let it serve as looking-glass

For myths and dreams the wildwood has.