Emotions Poem by Ruth Manning-Sanders

Spirits to whom my body's little world
Is but a tree of rest.
Whence birdlike free, ye rise and soar
Each on your several quest.
Above the heavy hills that close around
My strip of ground :

With songs, with dreams, with visioned ecstasies.
Ye come, when at my call
The bright wings beat for home, with gleams
Of music magical.
Of shapes and hues more fair than day brings, or
Night hungers for.

Rapturous your flight, rich your return is, yet
A speU falls on each song.
Each holds the word unuttered, breathed
Where worlds of beauty throng
Those reaches limitless to me denied.
Unsatisfied.

Sprites of the Spring,
Whose light wings rise.
Whose wild hearts sing
Shrill melodies,
The world's a trembling soul, the air
With joy unknown, with joy most rare
Stirs everywhere.

Deep and more deep each plumed breast doth glow.
Clear and more clear each song doth flow,
For there.
Cleaving the light-enshrouded sky.
Loud with your rhapsody.
The hope, the truth ye promised me.
Draws nigh.

Hush, I would listen spirits, voice on voice
Sweeps past me uttering
Tense minstrelsy, bird after bird
Escapes on eager wing;
I call, I call, to-night ye will not heed
Nor stay your speed.

The air is dark with passionate flight.
Rapid with beating sound.
And in a wild sweet sea of sense
My struggling thought is drowned ;
Spirits, ah spirits, each loud cfying soul
Sweeps to one goal.

Nor shape, nor hue, nor music 'tis ye sing,
Nor any visioned dream.
Your gusty orchestration throbs
The note of one strong theme;
Is this the hint ye gave, the bliss
I yearned for—this ?