Page:Love Poems and Others.djvu/73

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 And very sweet while the sunlight waves
 In the fresh of the morning, it is to be
 A teacher of these young boys, my slaves
 Only as swallows are slaves to the eaves
 They build upon, as mice are slaves
 To the man who threshes and sows the sheaves.

        Oh, sweet it is
 To feel the lads’ looks light on me,
 Then back in a swift, bright flutter to work,
 As birds who are stealing turn and flee.

 Touch after touch I feel on me
 As their eyes glance at me for the grain
 Of rigour they taste delightedly.

         And all the class,
 As tendrils reached out yearningly
 Slowly rotate till they touch the tree
 That they cleave unto, that they leap along
 Up to their lives—so they to me.

 So do they cleave and cling to me,
 So I lead them up, so do they twine
 Me up, caress and clothe with free
 Fine foliage of lives this life of mine;
 The lowest stem of this life of mine,
 The old hard stem of my life
 That bears aloft towards rarer skies
 My top of life, that buds on high
 Amid the high wind’s enterprise.

lxi.

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