Soul's Desire

By Edgar Lee Masters

Her soul is like a wolf that stands

Where sunlight falls between the trees
Of a sparse forest's leafless edge,
When Spring's first magic moveth these.

Her soul is like a little brook,

Thin edged with ice against the leaves,
Where the wolf drinks and is alone,
And where the woodbine interweaves.

A bank late covered by the snow,

But lighted by the frozen North;
Her soul is like a little plot
That one white blossom bringeth forth.

Her soul is slim, like silver slips,

And straight, like flags beside a stream.
Her soul is like a shape that moves
And changes in a wonder dream.

Who would pursue her clasps a cloud,

And taketh sorrow for his zeal.
Memory shall sing him many songs
While bound upon the torture wheel.

Her soul is like a wolf that glides

By moonlight o'er a phantom ridge;
Her face is like a light that runs
Beneath the shadow of a bridge.
 Her voice is like a woodland cry
Heard in a summer's desolate hour.
Her eyes are dim; her lips are faint,
And tinctured like the cuckoo flower.

Her little breasts are like the buds

Of tulips in a place forlorn.
Her soul is like a mandrake bloom
Standing against the crimson moon.

Her dream is like the fenny snake's,

That warms him in the noonday's fire.
She hath no thought, nor any hope,
Save of herself and her desire.

She is not life; she is not death;

She is not fear, or joy or grief.
Her soul is like a quiet sea
Beneath a ruin-haunted reef.

She is the shape the sailor sees,

That slips the rock without a sound.
She is the soul that comes and goes
And leaves no mark, yet makes a wound.

She is the soul that hunts and flies;

She is a world-wide mist of care.
She is the restlessness of life,
Its rapture and despair.

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