THE PADDOCK
Oh, but I don’t want rest! I get such lots.
I’m young—I’m not the least bit tired, except
As children are, at dawn,—tired of bed!
Rest isn’t always good for everything.
By resting in one place, wheat ripens—yes,
But water rots. Unrest is what I want;—
Change, chances, mystery, hope: to understand,
Dare, undertake, discover! Oh, it’s too safe,
Too snug, too settled—that’s the worst of it!
I don’t want just to be alive, I want
To feel it. Oh, I want to get away!
But there! ’Twould hurt them, and they’ve been so good,—
Ah, that they have, Heaven bless them! Fed, and clothed me,
Taught me, and train’d, and cared for me, and loved me,
Year after year. They’ve stood me on my feet.
—And, now I’m standing, good and firm and strong,
Some scrap of use at last, what’s their reward?
This: that I want to run away. For shame!
Janet! you are ungrateful.
No, I’m not!
Were you ungrateful, Apple-trees and Poplars,
When, just because they’d tended you, you grew
Out of the nook they’d nurs’d you in? What happen’d?
They were delighted—they transplanted you!
Those chicks, there—hadn’t they to break the shell,
When they were hatch’d? O, ’Lizabeth! I’m hatch’d—
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