Constance Lindsay Skinner

From “Songs of the Coast-dwellers”

I DESCEND through the forest alone.

Rose-flushed are the willows, stark and a-quiver,

In the warm sudden grasp of Spring;

Like a woman when her lover has suddenly, swiftly taken her.

I hear the secret rustle of the little leaves,

Waiting to be born.

The air is a wind of love

From the wings of eagles mating—

O eagles, my sky is dark with your wings!

The hills and the waters pity me,

The pine-trees reproach me.

The little moss whispers under my feet,

“Son of Earth, Brother,

Why comest thou hither alone?”

Oh, the wolf has his mate on the mountain—

Where art thou, Spring-daughter?

I tremble with love as the reeds by the river,

I burn as the dusk in the red-tented west,

I call thee aloud as the deer calls the doe,

I await thee as hills wait the morning,

I desire thee as eagles the storm;

I yearn to thy breast as night to the sea,

I claim thee as the silence claims the stars.

O Earth, Earth, great Earth,

Mate of God and mother of me,

Say, where is she, the Bearer of Morning,

My Bringer of Song?

Love in me waits to be born,

Where is She, the Woman?