OUT OF PRISON.

From crowds that scorn the mounting wings, The happy heights of souls serene, I wander where the blackbird sings, And over bubbling, shadowy springs, The beech-leaves cluster, young and green. I know the forest's changeful tongue That talketh all the day with me: I trill in every bobolink's song, And every brooklet bears along My greeting to the chainless sea! The loud wind laughs, the low wind broods; There is no sorrow in the strain! Of all the voices of the woods, That haunt these houseless solitudes, Not one has any tone of pain. In merry round my days run free, With slender thought for worldly things: A little toil sufficeth me; I live the life of bird and bee, Nor fret for what the morrow brings. Nor care, nor age, nor grief have I, Only a measureless content! So time may creep, or time may fly; I reck not how the years go by, With Nature's youth forever blent. They beckon me by day, by night, The bodiless elves that round me play! I soar and sail from height to height; No mortal, but a thing of light As free from earthly clog as they. But when my feet, unwilling, tread The crowded walks of busy men, Their walls that close above my head Beat down my buoyant wings outspread, And I am but a man again. My pulses spurn the narrow bound! The cold, hard glances give me pain! I long for wild, unmeasured ground, Free winds that wake the leaves to sound, Low rustles of the summer rain! My senses loathe their living death— The coffined garb the city wears! I draw through sighs my heavy breath, And pine till lengths of wood and heath Blow over me their endless airs!