Flopped on the floor
With such a silken richness of dark hair,
Descending breezily like blown water from her brow,
And from the arched crown of her Raphael head,
Between the years of twenty-five and thirty,
Her face glows and is white,
Like the thin spirit of a candle light.
And over her forehead passes
Swift waves of splendor, which must be her thought,
Looking, it seems, as if a snowy curtain
Were rhythmically blown at dawn in a white room!

In each of her eyes there is a blue-bright spark!
One time I saw two stars
Held in an inch of water when the evening
Was pale from dying day.
And under this thin water lay dead leaves
The drift of late October—
Gray leaves beneath clear water by an edge
Where spring’s first flower, the azure pickerel weed,
Bent over contemplated those two stars:
These were the sparks in her unruffled eyes.
Flopped on the floor
With little hands clasped round her girlish knees
Such musical thought sings through her cherub lips—
Raptures for Beauty,
Raptures for Truth,
Raptures for Freedom and a world that is free.
While around her flames the fire of a durable hope.
Till at last I sit in wonder
At the miracle of such spirit,
And the miracle of the youths about her,
Listening with bright eyes, in the fellowship of delight,
Who prompt, suggest, applaud, are passionate
For the right word, the soaring thought to beat
At heaven’s gate in a last burst of song.
And here am I a part of this psychic circle,
Bound with soft loops of gold in a charmÉd band
Of a brood of youthful archangels fiery and strong....

Then thrilled with love of a land that can grow such souls
I turn and ask them questions:
How old are you, who were your father and mother?
What chance have you had in life?
What books have you read?
And where have you bred these dreams?
But why do you laugh? for there must be soil or blood
Or both, for there must be the souls of free men
And the loins of free men,
To make archangels you know,
And pour them into the city to think and plan
For a greater Republic to come.
And though it matters nothing that villages
In Iowa, Indiana, Illinois
In the great far west, in New England, gave us you,
Or you, or you, or you—
I somehow thrill at the contrast, or thrill with the thought
Of such great richness and vastness in the land,
Flowering such souls all fresh and keen,
And eager to make the Republic wholly free—
May she deserve your love!