Explore "Preludes" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ I. There is no rhyme that is half so sweet / As the song of the wind in the rippling wheat; / There is no metre that's half so fine / As the lilt of the brook under rock and vine; / And the loveliest lyric I ever heard / Was the wildwood strain of a forest bird. -- / If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach / My heart their beautiful parts of speech, / And the natural art that they say these with, / My soul would sing of beauty and myth / In a rhyme and metre that none before / Have sung in their love, or dreamed in their lore, / And the world would be richer one poet the more.
/ II. A thought to lift me up to those / Sweet wildflowers of the pensive woods; / The lofty, lowly attitudes / Of bluet and of bramble-rose: / To lift me where my mind may reach / The lessons which their beauties teach.