Page:Poems Whitney.djvu/108

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102
kristel's soliloquy.
Recesses of the wilding park.
From wood and field, and flood and air,
Treasures of beauty and of use
My lowliness do not refuse.
The summer robe of the bison falls
In shady softness-down my walls;
The stag's coat hides mine earthen floor;
His antlers, branched like a sapling oak,
Are cornices for window and door.
And plumes that tropic winds have strook,
In tapestry of varied thought,
By hands of forest maidens wrought,
Come to my cabin, without strife
To live again in a human life.

And yet I wage no needless war;—
No wanton hand strikes down the wing,
Of stays upon the bended plain
The bison's stately journeying.
No form of lowliest grace I mar;