From every sodden meadow we’ve trodden out the sun;
We’ve ground the pale green stalks of grass
that lifted through the hills;
Across the yelping torrents a thousand feet have run,
Till waters scream in anger and the wide-mouthed valley fills.

Among the moaning spruces we threshed our heedless way;
And out upon the barrens where the lonely spaces hide,
We stamped the miles of mosses and blackened out the day,
And waked the awful silence where all the winds have died.

The stars flamed brave before us and the greater light hung still
When the white smoke of our breath blew up
and drowned the hollow night. 
We crushed them out beneath our feet and leapt from hill to hill,
Till east to east the sweep of space was rocking with our flight.

  The little walls of man uprose like shields beneath our feet;
    We beat upon their hollow cells a million shafts of rain;
  Our wild song of freedom was loud in every street,
    While down along the slimy wharves the great ships lift and strain.

  The dawn pushed pale thin fingers above the flattened sea,
    Groping blind white fingers that clawed the shroud of night;
  ’Till from the straining eddies the pale forms turned to flee,
    And a million tongues of madness rose singing through the fight.

  Across the quaking marshes we turned and wandered back;
    The trapper in the clearing heard the wan thin hosts of rain. 
  We moved between the steaming trails where all the woods dripped black,
    And high among the empty hills we pitched our tents again.

Spring Madness

  I stoop and tear the sandals from my feet
  While the green fires glimmer in the gloom;
  The hot roar of madness
  Swells my veins with gladness;
  I smell the rotting wood-stuff
  And the drift of willow-bloom,
  And the moon’s wet face
  Lifts above the place
  Till gaunt and black the shadows are crowding close for room.

  The alder thickets brush against my limbs;
  The heavy tramp of water shakes the night;
  I cross the naked hills,
  Where the thin dawn lifts and fills;
  All the black woods wail behind me—­
  They cannot stay my flight
  Till the sun’s red stain
  Dyes the world again
  And winds beyond the heavens are dancing in the light.

One Morning when the Rain-Birds Call

  The snows have joined the little streams and slid into the sea;
    The mountain sides are damp and black and steaming in the sun;
  But Spring, who should be with us now, is waiting timidly
    For Winter to unbar the gates and let the rivers run.

  It matters not how green the grass is lifting through the mold,
    How strong the sap is climbing out to every naked bough,
  That in the towns the market-stalls are bright with jonquil gold,
    And over marsh and meadowland the frogs are fluting now.