Page:The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter.djvu/268



be a woman! to be left to pique and pine, When the winds are out and calling to this vagrant heart of mine. Whisht! it whistles at the windows, and how can I be still? There! the last leaves of the beech-tree go dancing down the hill. All the boats at anchor they are plunging to be free— O to be a sailor, and away across the sea! When the sky is black with thunder, and the sea is white with foam, The grey gulls whirl up shrieking and seek their rocky home. Low his boat is lying leeward, how she runs upon the gale. As she rises with the billows, nor shakes her dripping sail. There is danger on the waters—there is joy where dangers be— Alas! to be a woman and the nomad's heart in me.

Ochone! to be a woman, only sighing on the shore— With a soul that finds a passion for each long breaker's roar, With a heart that beats as restless as all the winds that blow— Thrust a cloth between her fingers, and tell her she must sew;