Page:An epic of women and other poems (IA epicofwomenother00osha).pdf/61

 And, sloughing weaker lives grown wan With needs of sleep and weariness, I quit the hallowed haunts of man And seek the mighty wilderness.

—Now over intervening waste Of lowland drear, and barren wold, I scour, and ne'er assuage my haste, Inflamed with yearnings manifold;

Drinking a distant sound that seems To come around me like a flood; While all the track of moonlight gleams Before me like a streak of blood;

And bitter stifling scents are past A-dying on the night behind, And sudden piercing stings are cast Against me in the tainted wind.

And lo, afar, the gradual stir, And rising of the stray wild leaves; The swaying pine, and shivering fir, And windy sound that moans and heaves