Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/177

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BIRD OR BEAST.
149
If I might see another Spring—
Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in "if"—
If I might see another Spring
I'd laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would not wait for anything:
I'd use to-day that cannot last,
Be glad to-day and sing.


BIRD OR BEAST?
DID any bird come flying
After Adam and Eve,
When the door was shut against them
And they sat down to grieve?

I think not Eve's peacock
Splendid to see,
And I think not Adam's eagle;
But a dove may be.

Did any beast come pushing
Through the thorny hedge
Into the thorny thistly world,
Out from Eden's edge?

I think not a lion,
Though his strength is such;
But an innocent loving lamb
May have done as much.