Clipped Wings by Ruth Collie

Clipped wings! But all the same, you've wings. You cannot fly away / from duty, but you can rise above drab things. Oh, little, lovely / flight to beauty. Clipped wings, indeed, can take you far; well, far / enough to see the sun arise, the silver radiance of the evening star, / the trustfulness within a baby's eye -- lovely, indeed, these little / journeys are. I know, dear soul, the cage at times seems small, and / you are weary of the daily round. Better clipped wings than ne'er a / wing at all -- at least you rise with ease above the ground. You can / poise level with a daisy's head, or with a nest within an old forked / bough, and on towards a hollyhock bright red, and higher, higher / still -- as you are now, upon a fleecy cloud with crimson dyed. Swift / flight of dreams! Are you not satisfied? Clipped wings are not / spectacular, we know. They do not hold the centre of life's ring. / But ah! how swiftly and how gaily they can go towards the / commonplace, the homely, lowly thing. Be grateful for clipped wings / that carry you out of the drab into your bit of blue.