Loud Youth

There is a great, sweet golden bell in me — It has a chime of flame, a flame so bright I seem to walk forever in its light, As gods do in their immortality. Such a tremendous joy would come to be. That chains would turn to wreaths of blowing white, And crutches drop for wings to flare in flight, If I could ring the bell that is in me.

Oh if I could ! The stars would shake — and suns And moons collapse, and the hollow ways of death Fill with enough of echo to revive Such restlessness among the saintly ones, That the oldest of them all would catch his breath Remembering what it was to be alive!