Note: This poem has been abridged by me.


_________JUNE RAPTURE__________

GREEN! What a world of green! My startled soul
Panting for beauty long denied,
Leaps in a passion of high gratitude
To meet the wild embraces of the wood;
Rushes and flings itself upon the whole
Mad miracle of green, with senses wide,
Clings to the glory, hugs and holds it fast,
As one who finds a long-lost love at last.
Billows of green that break upon the sight
In bounteous crescendos of delight,
Wind-hurried verdure hastening to the hills
To where the sun its highest rapture spills;
Cascades of color tumbling down the height
In golden gushes of delicious light -
God! Can I bear the beauty of this day,
Or shall I be swept utterly away?

Praised be the gods that made my spirit mad;
Kept me aflame and raw to beauty's touch;
Lashed me and scrourged me with the whip of fate:
Gave me so often agony to mate;
Tore from my heart the things that make men glad -
Praised be the gods! If I at last by such
Relentless means may know the sacred bliss,
The anguished rapture of an hour like this.
Smite me, O life, and bruise me if thou must;
Mock me and starve me with thy bitter crust,
But keep me thus aquiver and awake,
Enamoured of my life for living's sake!
This were the tragedy- that I should pass,
Dull and indifferent through the glowing grass
And this is the reason I was born, I say -
That I might know the passion of this day!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Angela Morgan