Awakening

It were joy to have lived, if only to know
I had waked in this dusk of the woods to the flow
Of a streamlet that leaps down its dell to the lea,
Its waters a-sparkle and beckoning to me:
To have waked in the forest and marveled to hear
A bird at its matin-song gladsome and clear:
"From dawn-blue to sun-glow I've haunted your dream
With the lure of Her love by the marge of the stream."
To have slept in my sorrow and wakened but now
With a kiss as of exquisite lips on my brow,
And Her call as of bells to a world that's reborn,
And a beat in my blood like the laughter of morn:
To have wandered and toiled in the deep forest aisles,
To have counted in darkness the wearisome miles,
To have slept for the dream's sake, and waked with Love's word
At the lips of the stream, at the heart of the bird.