THERE WAS A TIME
There was a time when Mother Nature madeMy soul's sun, and my soul's shade.
A cloud in the sky could take awayThe song in my heart for all day,
And a little lark in a willow-treeWould mean happiness to me.
My moods would mirror all her whims;Trees were my strength: their limbs, my limbs,
But, oh, my mother tortured me,Blowing with wind, and sighing with sea.
I flamed, I withered, I blossomed, I sang,With her I suffered pang for pang,
Until I said: "I will grow my own treeWhere no natural wind will bother me."
And I grew me a willow of my own heart's strength,With my will for its width, and my wish for its length:
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