Towards democracy

Wuo sur THE Lover sHouLD KNow

H! who but she lover at last should know what Death is?

To give one’s body to the earth ;

To rise through the roots of the trees and to feel once more the sunshine—floating as a leaf in air;

To star out months together with mosses and bog-plants on the lonely mountain-sides, to lurk under the speckled fungi in the woods, looking up at the traveller as he passes ;

To be sucked in, in the mad rush of the sap through the veins of the chestnut in spring, and to burst in its great shining buds;

To catch at, dimly as in dreams, the wonderful thoughts that sweep through—the great rushing prophetic dreams of the life-laden earth ;

To feel the call of existence in new and strange fashion :

To arise and ascend ;

To mix with the animals reaming over the Earth ;

To be and to include them—to put on ale the mask which they put innocently on;

To be one of two swallows clinging to the southern wall, twittering, discussing sites for a nest; to be a snake basking coiled on a rock in the sun;

To rejoice in my swiftness and strength, my inevitable action and instinct ;