Read "A Hunting-Song" by Edith Wharton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
_HUNTERS, where does Hope nest? _ / Not in the half-oped breast, / Nor the young rose, / Nor April sunrise -- those / With a quick wing she brushes, / The wide world through, / Greets with the throat of thrushes, / Fades from as fast as dew.
But, would you spy her sleeping, / Cradled warm, / Look in the breast of weeping, / The tree stript by storm; / But, would you bind her fast, / Yours at last, / Bed-mate and lover, / Gain the last headland bare / That the cold tides cover, / There may you capture her, there, / Where the sea gives to the ground / Only the drift of the drowned.
Yet, if she slips you, once found, / Push to her uttermost lair / In the low house of despair.
There will she watch by your head, / Sing to you till you be dead, / Then, with your child in her breast, / In another heart build a new nest.