Wind In The Treetops

Treetops and wind in the treetops,
And a cloud-dappled bit of blue sky,
With a bird swift across its flight winging,
Are all I can see, as I lie
In my narrow white bed; but the wonder,
The glory, the beauty are there,
And I feel like a bird in its aery,
A prince of the kingdom of air.

Treetops and wind in the treetops,
And moonshine so mystic and pale
That the eye of some star far above it,
Peers soft thru a gossamer veil.
And far in the shadowy distance
Some sleeping bird chirps in its dream,
Till out 'neath the star-powdered heavens,
Afloat on swift pinions I seem.

Out, out in the mist and the moonshine,
Out, out o'er the slumbering world,
On, on till the end of the darkness
Where the banners of dawn are unfurled;
Till I see, gleaming forth from night's window
One great red-gold lamp of the sky,
And below it, the wrack-serried cloud-banks
Like black sheep--tumultuously fly.

Treetops and wind in the treetops!
You say and you pity me so,
Pity me before whom such a pageant
Ever passes so grandly and slow!
Till I smile in my pain, and forgetting
The poor ailing body's control,
See treetops and wind in the treetops,
And myself an emancipate soul!

^__Louisa Cooke Don-Carlos