A WISH.

Oh, that I were the Spirit of a Plant,

Rear’d in Imagination’s evergreen world,—

To lift my head above the meadow grass,

And strike my roots, far-spread and intervolved,

Deep as the Central Heart, wherefrom to taste

The springs of infinite being! From that source

What pregnant fermentations would arise;

What blossom, fruit, perfume, and influence;

To purify mankind’s destructive blood,—

So full of life and elevating powers—

So cloy’d and clogg’d for exercise of good.

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