The Flight of the Heart

The heart soars up like a bird
From a nest of care;
Up, up to a larger sky,
To a softer air.
No eye can measure its flight
And no hand can tame;
It mounts in beauty and light,
In music and flame.
Of all the changes of Time
There is none like this;
The heart soars up like a bird
At the stroke of bliss.

The heart soars up like a bird,
But its wings soon tire;
Enough of rapture and song,
The cloud and the fire!
Its look, the look of a king —
Of a slave, its birth,
The poor, tired, impotent thing
Sinks back to the earth.
And the mother spreads her lap,
And she lulls its pain:
"Oh, thou who sighed for the sun,
Art thou mine again?"