THE PADDOCK
“I am alive!—
But, merely—Can I thrive,
Being so barr’d and bound,
And straiten’d round?
Deep would I pierce! High would I spring and soar!
I am—I must be more!”
To Life demanding, what should life reply?
“Yea, sound the deep! yea, soar! But then must first
My swaddling-bands be burst.”
So! then—let’s die!
Quick! Let’s begin to grow.
Quick, quick! Let’s go
Glad and with joy below.
Down! Down into the Dark!
Our Right is so!
(Hine.)—
The sun grows hot.
A burden alike is his heat, and the want of his heat is a burden,
To backs bow’d down with the years;
And where, O Hine! are they,
Sprung of the loins of thy sons,
Or fed from thy daughters’ breasts,
To step to thy side, and take
The toil from this tremulous hand?
Ay, where?
And the [1]raupo roof, with its kindly coolness,
- ↑ Raupo (rów-po): A kind of bulrush.
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