Gently the ground sank from me ere I knew;
My heart leaped up as breaking earth's last bond;
The trees in huge bouquets a moment swayed
Like rushes round a pond.
Busy within their pigmy colonies,
Below I saw the toiling human ants—
Then they were gone. Ah! now I know whence come
Our dreams; they dwell where sunrays wink and glance
Among the rose-hued clouds which break away
In fragments, as soft breezes earthward play;
And sailing by, I saw dim forms that knelt
Before an altar like pale nuns in gray.
I was a bird—on pinions wide I swept
Upward, forever upward still I kept;
I felt no earthly fetter binding me,
For I, at last, was free.
