Soul's Desire

    Her soul is like a wolf that stands
    Where sunlight falls between the trees
    Of a sparse forest's leafless edge,
    When Spring's first magic moveth these.

    Her soul is like a little brook,
    Thin edged with ice against the leaves,
    Where the wolf drinks and is alone,
    And where the woodbine interweaves.

    A bank late covered by the snow,
    But lighted by the frozen North;
    Her soul is like a little plot
    That one white blossom bringeth forth.

    Her soul is slim, like silver slips,
    And straight, like flags beside a stream.
    Her soul is like a shape that moves
    And changes in a wonder dream.

    Who would pursue her clasps a cloud,
    And taketh sorrow for his zeal.
    Memory shall sing him many songs
    While bound upon the torture wheel.

    Her soul is like a wolf that glides
    By moonlight o'er a phantom ridge;
    Her face is like a light that runs
    Beneath the shadow of a bridge.

    Her voice is like a woodland cry
    Heard in a summer's desolate hour.
    Her eyes are dim; her lips are faint,
    And tinctured like the cuckoo flower.

    Her little breasts are like the buds
    Of tulips in a place forlorn.
    Her soul is like a mandrake bloom
    Standing against the crimson moon.

    Her dream is like the fenny snake's,
    That warms him in the noonday's fire.
    She hath no thought, nor any hope,
    Save of herself and her desire.

    She is not life; she is not death;
    She is not fear, or joy or grief.
    Her soul is like a quiet sea
    Beneath a ruin-haunted reef.

    She is the shape the sailor sees,
    That slips the rock without a sound.
    She is the soul that comes and goes
    And leaves no mark, yet makes a wound.

    She is the soul that hunts and flies;
    She is a world-wide mist of care.
    She is the restlessness of life,
    Its rapture and despair.