As Sharp as in my Childhood

As sharp as in my childhood, still

Ecstasy shocks me fixed. The will

Cannot entice it, never could, / So never tries. But from the wood

The wind will hurl the clashing sleet;

Or a small fawn with lovely feet, / Uncertain in its gait, will walk

Among the ferns, not breaking back

One frond, not bruising one fern black, / Into the clearing, and appraise

With mild, attracted, wondering gaze, / And lifted head unhurt and new, / This world that he was born into.

Such marvels as, one time, I feared

Might go, and leave me unprepared

For hardship. But they never did.

They blaze before me still, as wild

And clear, as when I was a child.

They never went away at all.

I need not, though I do, recall

Such moments in my childhood, when

Wonder sprang out at me again, / And took me by the heels, and whirled

Me round and round above the world.

For wonder leaps upon me Still, / And makes me dizzy, makes me ill, / But never frightened-for I know-

Not where-but in whose hands I go: